Jyuunishi Adventures In a Cabin
by Link and Luigi
Summary: Teenage Ayame, Shigure and Hatori have been bestowed with the responsibility of taking eight of the younger characters out into the wilderness. Who thought this would be a good idea? It doesn't matter. It would just make an interesting plot. Completed!
1. Arriving and Sleeping Bags!

THE GINGERBREAD MAN STORY

One day, a Gingerbread Man got out of the oven and everyone decided to chase him!!  So they chased him and chased him and chased him and chased him and…here's the real story.

TITLE!!!!!!!!!!

Just as a quick note before the story starts, this is taking place ten years prior to the actual series but we're going to pretend that they all know who Tohru is way back when.  THAT'S ALL!!  If we make anything up later, we'll be sure to tell you.

"Okay, the first person who sees the house gets a prize!!" declared Shigure randomly.

"You said that an hour ago!" whined Kyo.  "And I've been looking out the window this whole time and all I've seen is trees!!"

"And we still have about an hour of driving until we get there too." Said Ayame.

"ANOTHER HOUR?!?!" screamed all the kids.

"Now why would you say something like that?" said Hatori as he pulled up a driveway of a little cabin in a secluded area of a forest.

"I just wanted to get a rise out of them." Ayame replied.

"Looks like Hatori gets the prize!" said Shigure.

"Aww…" said everyone.

Then they all piled out of the car.  Well, as for what's going on, teenage Ayame, Shigure and Hatori have been bestowed with the responsibility to take eight children ranging from the ages five to nine out into the wilderness.  Who thought this would be a good idea?  It doesn't matter.  It would just make an interesting plot.  Hopefully.

"Eight?" said Shigure, counting heads.  "We've only got seven here."

"Are we supposed to have eight?" wondered Ayame.

"Shigure, I thought you said that Ritsu WAS in the car." Said Hatori.

"Kagura said that he was sitting next to her!" said Shigure.

"He DID sit next to me..." Said Kagura.  "But then I pushed him out of the way and forced Kyo to sit next to me.  And then he ran off crying."

"And why didn't you tell us this?" asked Hatori very stoically as if he didn't REALLY care.

"Because I didn't want to sit next to him!" Kagura replied.

The three older people looked at each other and shrugged.

"Oh well." Said Ayame.

Then they started unloading the car.  Of course, all the little children really carried was…their sneakers or something.  Ayame, Hatori and Shigure ended up making NUMEROUS trips ALL BY THEMSELVES!!!  OH DEAR!!!

After they had entered the cabin which was a bathroom, a kitchen, one room and a loft.  The only things inside were kitchen accessories, a couch and then three beds up in the loft.

"I get the loft!!" said Momiji.

"No.  You don't." said Shigure.  "All the children will be down here and the three of us will be up in the loft."

"Is that really wise?" asked Hatori.  "What if there was a problem?"

"There WON'T be!!" chuckled Ayame.

"If you say so." Said Hatori as he looked over just in time to see Kyo and Yuki start to fight over the couch.

"I get the couch!!" Kyo declared as he stood up on the couch triumphantly.

"No you don't." said Yuki smugly.

"What's THAT supposed to mean?!" demanded Kyo.

"It means that I get the couch!" Yuki said.

"NO IT DOESN'T!!!" Kyo yelled, throwing a temper tantrum.

"I think Tohru should get the couch." Said Haru.

Kyo looked like he was debating with himself for a minute.  "No!  I get the couch!!  I called it first!!"

"Kyo, you're far too loud." Said Hatori.  "From no on, whenever I hear you yell, you'll have to sit in the corner for five minutes."

"What?!  That's stupid!!" yelled Kyo.

"Five minutes."

"What?!?!  Why just ME?!"

"Ten minutes."

"That's not fair!!"

"Fifteen minutes."

"NO!!!"

"Twenty minutes."

"STOP!!!"

"Twenty-five minutes."

"STOP DOING THAT!!!"

"A half an hour."

"What?!  That's an entire TV show!!"

"Thirty-five minutes."

"Kyo, shut up!!" commanded Yuki.

"What about him?!" demanded Kyo when he noticed that Hatori wasn't tacking on any time-out minutes for Yuki.

"You're the loud one." Said Hatori.

"I HATE YOU!!!" Kyo yelled, pointing directly at Yuki as he stomped out of the room.  No, KYO stomped out of the room.  Not Yuki.

"He'll be back." Said Shigure.

"So…Tohru gets the couch?" said Yuki.

"No, that's okay!" said Tohru knavishly.

"So…let's all have our Burger King meals that we picked up prior to this story starting!" said Ayame as he whipped out seven Kids Meals and three NORMAL meals.

After passing them out, he was absolutely STUNNED and in SHOCK to realize that there were two leftovers.  After about five seconds of thinking, he concluded that one of them was Kyo's but he couldn't figure out who the other one belonged to.

"Why is there an extra Happy Meal?" Ayame asked Hatori.

"I don't know." Said Hatori.

"Is it Ritsu's?" asked Shigure.

"Why would we buy a meal for someone who isn't even here?" said Hatori.

The three of them quickly scanned the room, seeing Kagura, Tohru, Yuki, Momiji and Haru all eating their Happy Meals and then slapped their foreheads.

"We forgot all about Akito!!" laughed Shigure.  "Is he still in the car?"

"I hope not." Said Hatori.

They stood there for a second.

"That would be…um…the SECOND child we've forgotten?" Ayame said.

"This little vacation isn't going very well." Said Shigure.

"Let's make it better and go and fetch Akito…TOGETHER!!!" Ayame declared as he linked arms with Hatori and Shigure and frolicked outside, opening the door to see Akito lying in the back seat as if he were dead with a shadow covering half his face.

"He looks happy to be here!" said Shigure.  "Why didn't we just leave him at home?"

"I don't know…because then he'd be by himself?" Hatori suggested.

"But he's so creepy." Said Ayame.

"OH WELL!!!" they all said at the exact same time except Hatori said it WITHOUT exclamation points so he was kind of like…the HARMONY.  Then they worked together to bring Akito back in even though he really only weighed about a pound but since those three are just BEST FRIENDS they have to do everything together.

Upon re-entering, they dropped Akito on the couch.

"Sorry whoever got the couch, Akito gets it now." Said Shigure.

"FUDD NUGGETS!!!" said everyone since they had decided to share the couch earlier.

"You know what we just did?" said Hatori.  "We just left a bunch of kids alone in a house because we had to go and get the one that we left in the car who is not the one we left at home or the one that I observed to be sitting on the roof."

"Let's avoid pointing out our mistakes and more so point out our triumphs!" said Ayame.

They paused.

"Okay, maybe we should get Kyo off the roof." Said Shigure, clearing his throat.

"So go get him." Said Hatori.

"Why me?!" demanded Shigure.

"Because he listens to you." Replied Hatori.

"What?!  Since WHEN?!"

"Well, he obviously doesn't listen to me because of the time out incident that happened not less than three minutes ago." Hatori replied.  "And he won't listen to Ayame because…well…I wouldn't listen to Ayame if I were him."

"Mm." Said Ayame, nodding his head.

"Oh, so that means he listens to ME?!" Shigure said.

"Can we go swimming?" asked Momiji randomly.

"Momiji, we'll go swimming in the morning." Said Hatori.  "It's a little late right now.  Not to mention the fact that you just ate."

"Wow!" said Ayame.  "When DID it get to be this late?!"

"While we were talking." Said Shigure.

"All right, this means that we have to put everyone to bed." Said Hatori.

They looked at each other and then decided that now would be a good time to pull out the sleeping bags and the pajamas.

"I didn't pack my sleeping bag!" said Kagura.

"Is that another thing we did wrong because I didn't pack any sleeping bags and you didn't do much of ANYTHING to prepare for this trip." Said Shigure to Ayame.

"No, I packed the sleeping bags." Said Hatori as sleeping bags seemed to magically appear in his hands.  "Now…whose is whose?"

"Mine is the pink one." said Yuki.

"PINK?!" demanded Ayame.  "How DARE you?!"

"Yes…the pink one." Said Yuki.

"Here's the pink one." Said Hatori as he passed the pink sleeping bag to Yuki.

"No, that one's MINE!" said Momiji.

"Oh…yours is pink too?" questioned Hatori as he looked at the tag to see the name 'Momiji' on it.  Then he looked at the rest of the sleeping bags, located a SECOND pink one and was JUST about to hand it to Yuki when Tohru stepped in front of him.

"This one's mine." Said Tohru.  "See?  If you unfold it, it has Barbie on it."

Hatori unfolded the sleeping bag to see that there was Barbie on it.

"Okay." Said Hatori.  "Then Yuki's sleeping bag must be this one that I didn't notice before."

"No." said Kagura.  "That one's mine.  It's got lace on it."

"Then where is Yuki's?!" gasped Shigure.

"It's this one." Said Hatori, handing yet ANOTHER mysterious pink sleeping bag to Yuki who frolicked off.  "This OTHER pink one that I didn't notice."

"Oh." Said Shigure.

"Haru, I assume that this white one with black cow spots is yours." Said Hatori as he handed Haru the sleeping bag but Haru only dropped it.

"No!" he yelled.  "Just because I turn into a cow does NOT mean that I obsess over cows!  You gave Yuki MY sleeping bag!!"

"You have a pink one too?" said Hatori with a raised eyebrow.

"YES!!" yelled Haru.

"Then whose is this?!" demanded Ayame as he held up the cow sleeping bag.

"It must be Kyo's." said Hatori.

"I want MY sleeping bag!" yelled Haru.

"Fine." Said Ayame as he yoinked the sleeping bag away from Yuki and gave it to Haru who hugged it contently and then ran off.

"Why did you give my sleeping bag to Haru?!" cried Yuki.

"Cause this one's yours." Said Hatori as he gave Yuki another pink sleeping bag.

"Actually…" said Ayame, intervening.  "That one's mine."

"But you JUST yelled at Yuki for having a pink sleeping bag." Shigure reminded Ayame.

"It wasn't for having a pink sleeping bag." Said Ayame.  "It was for having one exactly the same as mine."

"Well how do you know that this one is not Yuki's?" said Hatori.

"It might be." Said Ayame with a shrug as he grabbed the sleeping bag.  "But I'm older so I get first dibs."

"Then…THIS one must be Yuki's." said Hatori.

"Well…actually that one's mine." Said Shigure.

"Does EVERYONE have a pink sleeping bag?" sighed Hatori, sounding ALMOST annoyed.

"Everyone…except you and Kyo." Shigure answered, taking the sleeping bag.

Hatori paused.  "Well, as long as everyone else has one too, I must admit," then he pulled a pink sleeping bag out from behind his bag.  "I have one too."

"WHERE'S MINE?!?!" yelled Yuki at the top of his lungs.

"Here." Said Hatori, handing Yuki the LAST pink sleeping bag.

"…This one's not mine." Said Yuki, looking at it.

"Oh…it must be Akito's then." Said Shigure as he took the sleeping bag away from Yuki.

"That actually is the last sleeping bag." Said Hatori, double-checking to make sure there were anymore.  "Except for Kyo's."

"Are you sure this isn't yours, Haru?" asked Ayame.

"Yes." Said Haru with a frown.

"Why does Kyo have a cow sleeping bag?" said Shigure almost as if it offended him.

"Where is Kyo anyway?" Hatori wondered, looking around.

"Still on the roof?" Ayame said, looking up.

"Shigure, I thought you were going to go and get him." Said Hatori.

"I forgot!!!!!" said Shigure as he ran off.

"Now…for pajamas." Said Hatori as he pulled out a bunch of pajamas from behind his back.  "Now…Haru, are these YOUR white pajamas with black spots or are they Kyo's?"

"No." said Haru, sounding annoyed and taking the pajamas.  "They're MINE."

"Then these cat ones are Kyo's." deducted Ayame as he fished through the pile of pajamas.

"They're MINE!" Kagura yelled as she dove for the pajamas.

"They look a little small." Observed Ayame.  "And they also look like little boy pajamas.  And…these look more fitting for you." And he held up a little nightgown with pig heads all over it.

"We traded." Kagura assured Ayame.

"Well…" then he stopped.  "Wait…I don't really care.  Whatever."

"Okay, the yellow sleepers with a bunny tail and a hood with bunny ears on it have got to be…" said Hatori, turning around to Momiji who had his arms outstretched.  "And as for the Barbie pajamas, I assume that those are Tohru's."

"YAY!!" cheered Tohru.

"As for Yuki…hm…Yuki, did you pack anything?" Hatori said, looking around for Yuki's pajamas.

"I did!" whined Yuki.

"I don't see anything here for you." Said Hatori.

"Kyo must have stolen my clothes!" Yuki deducted.

"Don't be stupid." Said Ayame.

Just then, Shigure came back in.

"Kyo said that he's not coming off the roof until we all agree to be his slaves." He declared.  "He says that if we don't then he'll just live up there forever because he has a bag of supplies that he could live off of.  Don't kids just say the stupidest things?"

"Yeah." Agreed Hatori and Ayame AT THE SAME TIME!!!

"Well, if Kyo's going to be on the roof, you might as well just wear his pajamas and sleep in his sleeping bag." Ayame told Yuki.

"WHAT?!  NEVER!!!" yelled Yuki.

"You guys, we're not just going to LEAVE him up there." Said Hatori.  Just then, the door opened and Kyo walked in.

"I thought you were going to live on the roof." Said Shigure.

"I had to go to the bathroom!" yelled Kyo as he ran over to the bathroom and tried to shut the door but Shigure put his foot in the door crack so he could NOT.

"You can't use the bathroom unless you intend on staying inside." He threatened.  "Otherwise, you'll just have to go to the bathroom on the roof."

"WHAT?!" yelled Kyo.

"I'm glad you agree." Shigure said as he allowed Kyo shut the door.

"Okay, now let's lie out the sleeping bags." Said Ayame as he turned around to see that Hatori was doing JUST THAT.  "All right…"

"I REFUSE to sleep next to Kyo!!" yelled Yuki.

"And I NEED to sleep next to him!!" Kagura yelled.  "But I don't want to sleep next to ANYONE else!"

"Fine then you'll be right up next to the couch then." Said Hatori, sliding Kagura's sleeping bag right up next to the couch.  Just like he said.  "And Kyo will go right next to you…and who wants to sleep next to Kyo?"

"I will!" said Tohru.

"No, I'M the only one who gets to sleep next to Kyo!!" yelled Kagura.

"No." said Hatori simply as he lied out Tohru's sleeping bag next to Kyo's.

"And I'll sleep next to Tohru." Said Yuki.

"You don't even have a sleeping bag!" said Momiji, giving his sleeping bag to Hatori.  "I'll be next to her!"  Hatori lied out HIS sleeping bag and was just about to go over and lie out Haru's to see that HE HAD ALREADY DONE THAT!!!

"What about ME?!" demanded Yuki.

"Well…I guess you can just sleep on the floor." Said Shigure as he and the two other older ones slowly inched up the stairs to the loft.

"That's not fair!!" whined Yuki but Ayame turned off the lights and the three ran up with their pink sleeping bags.  They had been relaxed for only a few minutes before…

"HEY!!!" came the obnoxious voice of Kyo.  "IT'S DARK IN HERE!!!  I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING!!!"  And then the lights turned on.

"You take care of it." Hatori instructed Shigure.

"Why are you picking on me?!" Shigure yelled.

"Because I don't feel like it and Ayame will only make it worse." Hatori replied.

"Mm." Said Ayame.

"HEY!!!" Kyo yelled again.  "THESE AREN'T MY PAJAMAS!!!"

"SHUT UP KYO!!!" Shigure bellowed down the stairs.

"YUKI STOLE MY PAJAMAS!!!" Kyo yelled.

"NO I DIDN'T!!!" Yuki argued.

"YUKI, GIVE KYO HIS PAJAMAS BACK!!!" Ayame yelled.

"I DON'T HAVE THEM!!!" Yuki yelled back.

"I DON'T WANT THEM ANYWAY!!!" Kyo continued to yell even though he didn't really need to.  "HE PROBABLY GOT THEM ALL GERMY AND GROSS ANYWAY!!  I'LL JUST SLEEP IN MY CLOTHES!!!"  And then the lights went off again.

There was about five seconds before they suddenly heard some whimpering coming from downstairs again.

"I want a nightlight…" cried Momiji.  "I can't sleep without a nightlight."

"Maybe if we ignore him, he'll eventually forget about it." Shigure whispered.

There was a little more whining but it eventually died out.  The three older people sighed with relief and realized that their clever and mature plan had worked.

But all of a sudden, they heard movement around in their loft.  All three shot up immediately to see Momiji standing there.

"Can I sleep with one of you?" he sniffled.

"No." they said at the same time.

"Momiji, go downstairs." Hatori commanded.

"But I'm SCARED!!" Momiji continued to cry.

"Get out of our loft!" yelled Ayame.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" screamed Momiji.

"Go sleep with Haru or something!!" Shigure yelled over Momiji's wails.

"He told me no!" Momiji said, wiping his eyes.

"Did you ask Tohru?" suggested Ayame.

"You can sleep with me, Momiji!!" Tohru called from downstairs.

"Okay!" said Momiji as he frolicked down the stairs.

And they waited for another few minutes.

"Okay, I think that's it." Said Shigure.

"OH MY!!!" came Tohru's voice from downstairs.  "I forgot about the fact that you turn into a rabbit when you hug me!!"

"Oh well!" said Momiji.  "More room!!"

"YEAH!!" said Tohru happily.

"WILL EVERYONE JUST BE QUIET?!?!" yelled Kyo.  "I'M TRYING TO SLEEP!!"

"YOU'RE THE ONE THAT WAS YELLING!!!" yelled Yuki.

"IF THERE'S ONE MORE INTERRUPTION TONIGHT THEN WE'RE GOING TO GET VERY ANGRY!!!" yelled Ayame.

And then all was silent.

And then…THUMP!!  Scream.  Poof.  Yelp.  Poof.  Exclamation!  Poof.  Leap.  Poof.

"All right…what happened?" said Hatori, getting out of the bed.

"Maybe it was nothing." Said Shigure.

"I highly doubt that." Said Hatori as he went down the stairs to see that everyone had somehow ended up turning into their accursed animal forms!!  OH NO!!!  "What happened?" he asked.

"Akito fell on me!" whined Kagura the Pig.

"Oh, so THERE are my pajamas!!" said Kyo the Cat.

"Okay…don't bother explaining." Said Hatori as he moved Akito back over to the couch.  "Just go to sleep."

"What if he falls on me again?" asked Kagura the Pig.

Hatori thought for a minute and then switched Kyo's cow sleeping bag and Kagura's pink sleeping bag.

"Oh, so now he'll fall on ME?" said Kyo the Cat, annoyed.

Hatori paused.  "Yes." He replied as he went back up into the loft.

"So what happened?" asked Shigure.

"…Nothing." Hatori replied as he got back in bed.


	2. Hiking and Shoes!

THE NEXT MORNING!!

Ayame woke up early the next day so that he could do his morning stretches.  He just never felt right unless he had sufficiently stretched in the morning.  Today was no different as he touched his toes wearing nothing but his tighty-whitys.

"You're awake!" came a voice from behind him.  "Now we can go swimming!!"

Hatori sprung up from his bed and looked at Momiji who was standing there as if he belonged.

"Momiji, don't come up here again." Said Hatori as he shielded Momiji's eyes from Ayame and brought him downstairs.  "You may see some things that you really shouldn't see."

"But I want to go swimming!" Momiji whined.  Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, he saw that everyone was awake, with the exception of Haru, and climbing all over the couch and Akito who was just lying there as if nothing was happening.

"What are you doing?" Hatori said, coming very close to raising his voice as he grabbed Yuki and put him on the floor.

"We were playing King of the Castle!" Yuki explained.

"I AM THE KING NOW!!!" Kyo screamed at the top of his lungs when he saw that Yuki was now on the floor.  But then he was pushed off the couch by Kagura who laughed cruelly at his expense.

"I am the QUEEN." She declared.

"The game is NOT called 'Queen of the Castle'!!" Kyo yelled, enraged.

Hatori then noted the fact that Haru was still asleep.  "Everyone be quiet or you're going to wake up Haru." He said.

"Haru's not going to wake up any time soon." Said Momiji who was just getting down the stairs.  "We already tried."

"…Where's Tohru?"

"I'm making breakfast!" announced Tohru as she waved her arm around.  Hatori went over to the kitchen and looked at what Tohru was doing.  She had all of the burners on full blast and was cooking empty pans.

Hatori turned all the burners off and picked Tohru up but in picking her up, he turned into a seahorse!!

"OH NO!!" Tohru cried as she picked Hatori up and ran around in a panic.  She then ran into the bathroom and threw him into the toilet.

"Don't throw him in the toilet!!" yelled Momiji, poking his head in.  "We have a lake right outside!!"

"OH RIGHT!!!" Tohru said.

"I'll bring him down since I already have my bathing suit on." Momiji said, taking off his pajamas to reveal that he was already wearing a girl's bathing suit with a frilly little dress.  Then he grabbed onto Hatori and ran out the door.

Tohru paused for a second.  "WE GET TO GO SWIMMING NOW!!!" she squealed suddenly as she ran over to her bag to locate her bathing suit which had Barbie on it.

"I HATE swimming!!" said Kyo, crossing his arms.

But everyone got on their bathing suits ANYWAY and ran outside to see Momiji splashing around in the water like a knave and Hatori sitting there, being a human but ALSO being naked, in the water.

"Could someone get my clothes?" he requested.

"I'll get them since I was the one who made you turn into a sea horse in the first place!" Tohru declared as she ran back inside the house.  She returned a few minutes later and tossed the clothes into the water frantically.  Of course, Hatori wasn't exactly expecting her to just toss the clothes in his general direction so the clothes just ended up getting ALL WET!!!  NOOOO!!

So he just gave a heavy sigh and clothed himself quickly and tracked back to the house.

"You're not supposed to go swimming with your clothes on." Said Ayame when Hatori had opened the door.  "Look, now you've got water all over the floor!  Honestly, we leave you alone for a MINUTE and this is what you do?!"

Hatori, of course, did not take ANY heed to what Ayame was saying, more so to what he was WEARING.

"You are NOT wearing that in front of so many virgin eyes." Hatori said, pointing to Ayame's bright red Speedo.

"But it's my only bathing suit!" Ayame said.

"Well, that's why I brought an extra one because I knew you would do that." Said Hatori as he whipped out a NORMAL man's bathing suit from behind his back and handed it to Ayame.

"Hatori, you left six kids all alone outside in the water!" said Shigure, looking out the window.

"I did?" Hatori said, thinking back and then realizing that he did.  "Shigure, you go out and watch them until I change."

"But I don't want to…" Shigure complained.

"I'm going out now anyway!" declared Ayame, revealing that he had ALREADY changed his bathing suit in record-breaking time.

"Well…that's not very reassuring." Said Hatori.

"What could happen?!" Ayame laughed as he frolicked outside.  He looked around to see that Yuki was splashing Kyo who was throwing rocks at him in attempt to get him to stop.  Kagura was also continuously dumping large quantities of sand on Kyo's head while he was distracted by Yuki.  Tohru was building a sandcastle with Momiji.

"Shut up!!" Ayame yelled as he pulled out his lounge chair and lied down with his little mirror tanning device.

Everyone stopped their activity for about five seconds and then continued.  It was then that Hatori, Shigure and Haru came outside.  "I thought you were going to supervise them." Said Hatori to Ayame.

"I AM!" said Ayame, putting his sunglasses on.

"Doesn't look that way." Said Shigure.

"I don't want to go swimming…" complained Haru.  "I just woke up…"

Hatori decided that HE would be watching the children in the water, Ayame would be doing absolutely nothing and Shigure would…ALSO be doing absolutely nothing!!

"That's not true." Said Shigure.  "I will watch Haru."  He then handed a baseball glove to Haru.  "We will play a rousing game of catch."

"I don't want to." Said Haru.

"Then go swimming."

"I don't want to do that either."

"It's one or the other!"

"I'll play catch…"

"Good!" said Shigure, putting a glove on his own hand.  Then he gave a very friendly and easy toss to Haru who, having six-year-old motor skills after just waking up, missed the ball entirely.  "Uh…nice try.  Now throw the ball."

Haru just kind of looked at the ball.

"Throw it!" Shigure commanded.  "Throw it!  Throw it!!"

"I AM!!" Haru said as he threw the ball as far as he good which was about a foot in front of him.

"That's okay!" said Shigure, running all the way over the ball, picking it up, handing it to Haru and then running back to where he was before.  "Now throw it again!  Throw the ball!!  THROW IT!!!  THROW IT!!  THROW IT!!!"

"I don't wanna play catch!" Haru whined.

"You will play it and you will LIKE it!!" Shigure said.

"I'm gonna go swimming instead." Said Haru as he dropped the glove and ran off to the water.

"Fine." Said Shigure, sounding offended.

"Shigure, since you're not playing catch anymore, why don't you come in and help me watch everyone else?" Hatori suggested.

"I'm not wearing my bathing suit." Said Shigure.

"Then go get changed." Hatori instructed.  Shigure shrugged and went back into the cabin.

"Throw me, Hatori!!" said Momiji as he ran into the water.

"Um…sure." Said Hatori as he picked Momiji up and tossed him.

"ME NEXT!!!" yelled Kyo, pushing Yuki out of the way who was waiting patiently for his turn.  So Hatori picked him up and tossed him as far as he would go.

"NOW it's my turn!" Yuki declared.  And Hatori threw him.

"Me now!!" Tohru said excitedly.  Hatori was just about to throw her too when he thought back to what happened earlier and then decided against it.  So he redirected himself and threw Kagura.

"Hey!!" yelled Kagura.  "I didn't want to be thrown!!"

"Now throw me!" said Tohru, not caring that he had thrown Kagura even though she hadn't asked.  But Hatori redirected again and grabbed Haru who was standing about ankle deep in the water.

"DON'T THROW ME!!!!" Haru yelled about as loud as he possibly could.

"Oh…uh sorry." Said Hatori putting him back down.

"My turn!" said Tohru.

"Does anyone else want to be thrown?" Hatori asked.

"ME!!!" demanded Kyo who had come back.

"Fine." Said Hatori, throwing Kyo even further than before.

"What about me?" asked Tohru, starting to realize that she was being purposely avoided.

"Tohru, I'll turn into a seahorse if I pick you up." Hatori explained.

"But that's not fair!" Tohru sniffled.  "Everyone else got to be thrown and you threw Kyo twice!"

"Haru didn't get thrown." Hatori said, pointing to Haru who had still not yet moved from the spot he was in.  And then he watched Akito float by in a Dead Man's Float.  He paused, turned Akito around so he was face up and then let him float away.  "Akito didn't get thrown either."

"They didn't WANT to be!" whined Tohru.  "But I DO!"  Then she burst into tears and ran away sobbing just as Shigure came outside.

"I'm ready to be helpful!" he announced.

"Then go and get Tohru." Hatori said.

"There you go, giving me another order!" said Shigure, throwing his hands up in the air.  "It's always, 'Shigure, go get Kyo off the roof!' or 'Shigure, play catch with Haru!' or 'Shigure, go get Tohru!'  When does SHIGURE have time for SHIGURE?"

"But you just said that you wanted to be helpful." Hatori reminded him.

"Sometimes you just have to IGNORE what I say." Said Shigure.

Suddenly, Tohru came back.  "I'm sorry I yelled at you!" said Tohru.  "I just got a little angry!  I'm really really happy that you invited me on your trip and I should be grateful!  Please forgive me!"

Then she ran back in the water.

"This swimming idea isn't proving to be very successful." Said Hatori.

"Let's go on an all day hike!" said Ayame, standing up and suddenly wearing hiking gear with a huge backpack.

"Sounds like fun!!" Shigure agreed, also wearing hiking gear.

"Well, I'll stay at home with everyone who doesn't want to go on the all day hike just like me." Said Hatori.  "Obviously, we're going to split Kyo and Yuki up and Kyo is going to stay with me."

LATER!!!

"I'm carrying more weight than you!!" Kyo said, sticking out his tongue at Yuki as the two of them trudged behind Ayame and Shigure.

"No way!" said Yuki.  "I am DEFINITELY carrying more than you!!"

"I'll race you to that tree!!" Kyo declared.

"You're on!!" Yuki yelled as the two of them dropped their backpacks and ran off to the tree but before they got there, Shigure grabbed them each by their collars and lifted them off the ground.

"That's enough child's play!" he said.  "We are going to continue this hike even if it kills us!"

"You're no fun!" said Kyo.

"Hm…maybe we can set camp up here." Said Ayame, looking around.

"We've only been hiking for a few minutes!" Yuki yelled at him.  "I can still see the cabin from here!"  They turned around to see Hatori, Momiji, Tohru and Kagura waving them off.

"So we have…" said Ayame slowly.

"Let's at least hike for a LITTLE while longer." Shigure said, putting them both down and continuing to hike.  "Hey…where's Haru anyway?"  And then they looked back down at the cabin to see him slowly advancing forward with a backpack that was bigger than he was.

"What's taking him so long?" Ayame demanded.

"You switched backpacks with him!!" Shigure yelled, pointing at the teeny little white backpack with black spots that Ayame was carrying.

"Mine was too heavy…" Ayame complained.  Just then, Hatori was there all in their faces with Haru in one hand and the giant backpack in the other.

"Maybe you two should stay home." He said.

"No!!" yelled Shigure and Ayame.

"It was all Ayame's fault!" Shigure said, pointing at Ayame.  "We've got it all under control!!  Don't worry about us!"

Hatori skillfully switched Ayame and Haru's backpacks and then left.

They trudged for a few more minutes until the cabin was out of sight.

"I'm tired." Said Haru.  "I wanna go back now."

"No, you have to prove to everyone that you're a man!" said Ayame.

"But I AM a man…" Haru whined.

"Prove it then!" Ayame said.  "I've already proved it so YOU need this giant backpack to show everyone.  Here you go."

"I don't want to!!" cried Haru.

"I'LL carry the giant backpack!" said Kyo, jumping in front of Yuki.

"No, I will!" Yuki said, pushing Kyo out of the way.

"Don't be silly, Yuki, you know you couldn't carry THAT much weight!" laughed Kyo in a very forced manner.

"YES I COULD!!!" Yuki yelled.

"You two can SHARE the weight." Said Ayame.

"Share…WITH HIM?!" they said at the same time.

"I'd rather have HIM carry the whole thing!" said Kyo.

"No, HIM!!" Yuki argued.

"Here, we'll just equally distribute it in your backpacks." Said Ayame as he opened his backpack and started filling up both of theirs.  "Be careful, though, because this is our food supply."

MEANWHILE!!!

"Okay, next time I turn into a seahorse, don't throw me into the lake." Said Hatori, opening the door and walking inside the cabin where Momiji, Tohru and Kagura were all sitting around the table coloring.

"We're sorry!" they all chimed at the same time.

Hatori then changed his clothes into something dry and then sat down at the table with the three.  They didn't really do anything except color and comment on how pretty another picture was and it was about that time that Hatori started wondering how he had gotten the three well behaved ones and the other two had gotten the three troublemakers…or at least the two troublemakers and Haru.  Then he started fantasizing about what could possibly be happening while he was sitting there fantasizing about what could possibly be happening.

After sufficiently cannibalistically eating Haru, the hiking group continued their way across the edge of some really dangerous cliff.  

"Keep up, you too!" Shigure yelled to Yuki and Kyo who were fighting to the death on the edge of the cliff.  Somehow, they had ALL managed to turn into animals so that was also a factor.  Ayame and Shigure watched as Yuki and Kyo fought and fought until they both rolled off the cliff.  They then shrugged and continued walking down a path that had a sign that said, 'Dangerous Landslides This Way!'

Hatori decided that he didn't want that to happen no matter how unrealistic it might be so he packed up Tohru, Momiji and Kagura to go on a hiking trip that eventually would meet up with the other group.

"Where are we going?" asked Tohru as they walked out the door.

"We're going on a hike too." Said Hatori.

"But I didn't want to go on a hike!" whined Momiji.

"Well, we're going to find everyone else and see how they're doing." Explained Hatori ever so patiently.

"But they're miles ahead of us now!" said Kagura.  "There's no way we can catch up!"

"I'm sure we'll catch up really easily." Said Hatori.

MEANWHILE!!

"So explain this to me as if I CAN'T read your mind." Said Shigure as he unpacked a tent from his backpack.

"Well I was racing Yuki and I figured I could beat him if I took off my backpack." Explained Kyo.

"And WHY was the food in Kyo's backpack?" asked Shigure as he turned to Ayame accusingly.

"Beats me!" Ayame said with a shrug.

"I still have MY backpack." Said Yuki smugly.  "I didn't need to put it down to beat Kyo."

"YOU DIDN'T BEAT ME!!" Kyo yelled.

"Well, if I had put mine down too then I would have!" Yuki said.  "And if you hadn't tripped me!"

"I DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE!!" Kyo bellowed.

"Shut up!" Shigure yelled.  Then he sighed.  "We're just going to have to FORAGE for our food like real campers."

"I don't want to be a REAL camper." Whined Haru.  "I just want to eat now."

"Well, what do you suggest we eat?" Shigure asked sarcastically.  

"I don't know." Said Haru quietly.

"Then don't complain and help look for food." Said Shigure.

"No one was looking for food yet." Ayame pointed out.

"Thank you, Mr. Obvious." Said Shigure.  Then he thought for a minute.  "Kyo, Haru and I will go down to the lake and go fishing.  Ayame, you and Yuki go build a fire or something like that."

"ME go with YUKI?!" Ayame gasped.

"Yes." Said Shigure.  "Hatori put ME in charge!"

Then Shigure, Kyo and Haru bolted off before Ayame could argue about the fact that Hatori had done no such thing!  Even if he HAD, who originally put HATORI in charge?!

"So where are the fishing poles?" asked Haru as he looked around.

"We don't have any." Said Shigure.  "We're going to have to catch them with our hands."

"WHAT?!" Kyo demanded.  "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!"

"No it isn't." said Shigure as he tossed Kyo into the water.  "Now go on, Kyo, catch us many fish!"

"Why me?!" Kyo demanded.

"Cause you're the one in the water!" Shigure pointed out.  "No sense in us ALL getting wet!"

Kyo stood in the water for a minute and looked around.  

"There are no fish anywhere!" Kyo yelled.

"That's because you're yelling!" Shigure said.  "If you shut up for ONCE in your life, maybe something will come near you!"

Haru, meanwhile was trying to be resourceful so he took out his shoelace and tied it to a stick.  Even though that never works, he still tried it because HE didn't know that it wouldn't work!  HAW HAW HAW!!

"I'm fishing." Haru declared stoically but he was ignored.

"There's one!!!" Kyo yelled as he dove down into the water only to resurface with absolutely nothing in his hands.

MEANWHILE!!!!

"Make the fire, Yuki." Ayame instructed.

"We don't have any firewood." Yuki said, crossing his arms.

"Then GET some." Ayame said as if it were the most obvious things in the entire world.  Even though it kind of IS but whatever…

"You have to do something to!!" Yuki demanded.

"Are you trying to tell me what to do?!" Ayame yelled.  "My hair is longer than your body and you're trying to give me orders?!  Now, I COMMAND you to go and get firewood!!"

Yuki pretended to cry for a minute but he could tell that it wasn't going to work with Ayame so he sadly walked off with his head hung low.

MEANWHILE!!!

"Carry me too!" Tohru whined to Hatori.  Hatori was ALSO carrying his own bag, Momiji's bag, Tohru's bag, Kagura's bag as well as both Kagura and Momiji.  It's not like Hatori couldn't HANDLE Tohru's weight because you KNOW he can but he just wasn't interested in turning into a seahorse and then being tossed in the lake at the moment.

"I can't help but think that we forgot something." Hatori said suddenly as he held up another bag that had Akito's name lovingly embroidered on it. "Momiji, did you wake up Akito like I asked you to?"

"I tried." Momiji answered.  "But I don't think he wanted to come."

"I don't really miss him." Confessed Kagura.

"I lost my shoes, Hatori!!" complained Tohru, pointing at her bare feet.

Hatori stared at her for a minute.  "Uh…why did you take your shoes off and where did they go?" he asked finally.

"Because I wanted you to carry me…!" said Tohru.  SHE probably thought it was a good idea.

"I'LL walk with you, Tohru!" said Kagura, hoping of Hatori's shoulder and then gasped as if she had just realized something.  "I KNOW!!!  FOOT RIDE!!!"  Then she wrapped her arms around Hatori's leg and sat down on his foot.

"YAY!!" cheered Tohru as she did the same to Hatori's OTHER leg.  YOU know what happened next, don't you?!  And considering Hatori was carrying a whole mess of gear at the time, as well as Momiji, he got CRUSHED!!!

MEANWHILE!!!

"We're back!" said Shigure, walking back over to where Ayame and Yuki were sitting casually as if they shouldn't be doing anything.

"Did you catch any fish?" Ayame asked, looking at their empty hands.

"Well…we TRIED." Said Haru, holding up his fishing rod.

"Haru, why aren't you wearing any shoes?" Shigure said, just noticing.

"I took them off at the river because I took my shoelaces out to make the fishing rod." Haru explained.  "They wouldn't stay on without the shoelaces so I didn't need them."

MEANWHILE!!!

"WOW!!" cheered Tohru, picking up a tiny pair of shoelace-less shoes with little cartoon cows on the side.  "Shoes for me!" She then attempted to jam her feet in the shoes but her feet were far too large.

"We can share my shoes." Said Momiji, taking off one of his shoes and giving it to Tohru.

"No…your shoes are too small too." Said Tohru as she put it down but then accidentally dropped it in the river.  "OH NO!!  I'm so sorry!!"

"That's okay!" said Momiji, taking his other shoe off too.  "I didn't really like these shoes anyway." And then they watched Momiji's shoes float off down the river.

"Here are your clothes, Hatori!!" said Kagura, tossing some clothes into a bush.

"Thank you." Said Hatori who was in the bush.  There was a short pause and then he came out of the bush fully clothed.  "What about my shoes?" he asked, pointing to his feet.

"Did you lose your shoes too, Hatori?" Momiji said cheerfully.

"Oh dear…" said Kagura.  "Now I'm the only one with shoes.  Well, I don't want to be THE ONLY ONE!!" And with that, she took her shoes off and tossed them in the river as well.  LORD!!!

"Don't do that…" Hatori sighed, watching the shoes float away.

MEANWHILE!!!

"Yeah, I went in the water and my shoes got stuck in the mud." Kyo explained with a shrug.

"So you just LEFT them there?!" Shigure yelled.

"WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?!" Kyo demanded.

"Oh I don't know…GRAB THEM?!" Shigure suggested angrily.

"I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT!!!!!" yelled Kyo at the top of his lungs.

"Oh…now Haru AND Kyo have lost their shoes." Said Ayame as if he was really sad about it.

"Maybe we should just go back to the cabin." Said Haru.

"What?!" yelled Shigure.  "And PROVE to Hatori that we can't do anything right?!  NEVER!!  We will return to the river and retrieve both of your shoes!!"  He then put Kyo and Haru under each of his arms and was just about to stomp off when Yuki grabbed his shirt.

"Wait, are you leaving me with Ayame again?!" he whined.

"We're only going down to the river to get Haru and Kyo's shoes." Shigure explained.

"Well…I lost my shoes too!" Yuki said, taking his shoes off and tossing them as far as he could in the general direction of the river.  He only threw them about a foot past Shigure who raised an eyebrow and then looked at Ayame.

"Fine…we'll ALL go." Said Shigure.  Then they all marched off to the river only to stumble across Hatori, Momiji, Tohru and Kagura who were still standing there foolishly.

"What are you doing here?!" demanded Ayame.  "You don't think we can do anything right?!"

Hatori looked them up and down as if he were actually trying to decide.  "No.  I really don't." he said finally.  He was GOING to point out the fact that they had left Haru's shoes behind but then THEY were going to point out the fact that no one had any shoes and not to mention that he had left Akito behind…

"Where's Akito?" Shigure asked, looking around.  "You left him at the house, did you?"

Hatori just stood there with a stoic expression for a minute.  He didn't have to answer if he didn't WANT to.  And he didn't WANT to.  So he wasn't going to answer.

"I'll take that as a yes." Shigure said as he shook his head with utter disappointment.

"I WANNA GO HOME NOW!!!" screeched a random child with no shoes.

"We have to go home now anyway." Said Hatori to Ayame and Shigure.

"But we were just starting to have fun…" complained Ayame.

"THAT'S a lie!!" yelled Yuki who was still under one of Shigure's arms.

"Let's go." Said Hatori as put Haru and Momiji under each of his arms and started walking off.  Shigure shrugged and skipped after him.  Ayame turned around and put Kagura under one arm and Tohru under the other since he wanted to be just like everyone else but he forgot entirely that he wasn't really supposed to be picking up Tohru so he only succeeded in turning himself into a snake!!  HAW HAW HAW!!!

"I am a snake!" said Ayame the Snake knavishly.

"Ayame, that was very foolish of you." Said Hatori monotonously.  Yuki then ran over to Ayame, grabbed him, swung him around above his head and hurled him as far as he could which, unfortunately for him, wasn't really all that far.  After they had relocated Ayame, they all made their way back to the cabin.


	3. Grocery Shopping and Black Haru!

LATER!!!

"What are we going to do?" Shigure practically whined.  "Now no one except Ayame and myself have shoes."

"You were even irresponsible enough to lose YOUR shoes, Hatori!" laughed Ayame cruelly.

"Well, luckily everyone also packed their sandals considering the fact that it IS the summer." Hatori reminded them.

"I'm hungry!!" yelled Kyo as he stomped up the ladder into the loft where the three elders were chillin'.

"Shut up Kyo!!" yelled Ayame.

"Ayame, we haven't fed them all day." Said Hatori.  "He has reason to be hungry I suppose."

"YOU SUPPOSE?!?!" screamed Kyo quite possibly just a little louder than what was currently humanly possible.  "HERE WE ARE STARVING AND YOU'RE JUST SUPPOSE!?!?"

"Well, you're the one that left our food in the woods." Ayame pointed out to Kyo.

"So like when we were in the woods, we have to forage!" said Shigure.

"I'm sure this place has SOME food in the kitchen." Said Hatori as he climbed down the ladder of the loft and walked in the kitchen to search among the cabinets.

"No one's been here for years." Said Shigure.  "Even if there IS any food, it can't possibly still be healthy if we were to eat it."

After thoroughly searching the kitchen, the only things that were found was a bag of sugar, some baking soda, a mystery Tupperware with unknown contents, sunflower seeds and some granola that was all hardened together into a big granolay rock.

"Isn't there a food store nearby?" asked Shigure.

"There was one about thirty miles down the road." Said Hatori.

"Let's HIKE to it!" declared Ayame as he was suddenly in full hiking garb again.

"No." said Hatori sternly.  "I'm not taking all these kids and you two thirty miles to a store to get food when none of us have shoes."

"WE have shoes." Shigure pointed out.

"Then why don't you two go and get food?" asked Hatori.

"I'm for Shigure's FORAGING idea!" said Ayame as he pulled down a shade to reveal a cleverly made chart that he made.  "I figure we can each do different tasks depending on certain advantages we have."

Hatori and Shigure looked at Ayame's chart.

"You wrote on the shade?" asked Hatori.

"Yes…yes I did." Said Ayame.

"Don't do it again."

"So anyway, Yuki, with his rodent-like foraging abilities, can collect all sorts of nuts and other things that small furry creatures like himself enjoy eating." Started Ayame.

"Since when does Yuki have rodent-like foraging abilities?" asked Hatori.

"Since always." Said Ayame seriously.  "And cats are expert fish catchers!  That can be Kyo's job!"

"Kyo is a failure fish catcher!" Shigure said with his finger pointed high in the air.

"No he isn't!" Ayame said as he cleared his throat.  "Ritsu can climb trees like an ape and get fruits and stuff…"

"Ritsu is not here." Said Hatori.

"Well, if you guys don't want to hear my ideas…" said Ayame as he flipped the shade back up.

"Well, DRIVING to the store is not out of the question." Said Hatori.

"We wouldn't be TRUE campers if we DROVE to a store!" said Shigure.

Hatori decided that he would ignore Shigure.  "Now, I will drive to the store that is thirty miles away." He said.  "And since it's thirty miles away, it will probably take at least two hours to get there and back and I am definitely not leaving you two with all these kids to watch so I will take some of them with me." He thought for a minute.  "Maybe I'll take some of the more tranquil ones with me in the car…like…Tohru, Haru and Momiji."

He was just about to turn around and leave when he stopped.  "Actually, I'll leave Tohru here and take Yuki instead so I could not only split up Yuki and Kyo but Tohru couldn't accidentally fall on me again.  Quite frankly, I am not interested in once again turning into a seahorse and then tossed into any sort body of water whether it be a lake, a toilet or a cereal bowl."

"Hatori, stop talking out loud to yourself, take Kyo, Kagura and Tohru with you and go to the store." Said Ayame as he punted the three children out the door and then decided that maybe Akito needed some fresh air so he punted Akito out the door as well.

I guess Hatori was in some sort of 'thinking aloud to yourself' state of mind at the time so he just kind of got in the car without switching the kids around.

"I DON'T WANNA SIT IN THE MIDDLE!!!" yelled Kyo as he stood outside the door because Kagura and Tohru had already gotten in the car and only the middle seat was open in the back.  (Akito had been punted EXACTLY into the passenger's seat and because of some sort of bizarre magic lightning bolt from the heavens, he was also buckled in.)

"I'LL sit in the middle!" said Tohru cooperatively as she moved over and buckled herself in.  Kyo was about to throw a temper tantrum for no reason whatsoever but he just climbed in because now he was GRUMPY!!  ALSO for no reason whatsoever!!!

And Hatori hummed his favorite song, The Yoshi Song, and started driving.  Only after a few minutes did it occur to him that he had just taken pretty much everyone he DIDN'T want to take but that didn't really matter since it was only collectively about sixty miles and WHAT THE HELL COULD HAPPEN IN THE CAR?!?!

MEANWHILE!!!

"Come on, let's do something!!" said Shigure as he and Ayame paraded down the loft ladder because they had just remembered that they had to be watching the kids and not sitting up in the loft talking about what it's like to be a snake and a dog.

"I AM doing something." Said Haru as he pulled himself back in from being kind of out the window to reveal that he had a butterfly in his hands.  "A butterfly."

"Okay…now let the butterfly go and let's go do something!" said Ayame.

"BUTTERFLY?!" Momiji yelled, looking up from his color-by-number.  "LET ME SEE IT!!"  He ran up as fast as he POSSIBLY could over to Haru to look at the butterfly.  The two stared at the butterfly and didn't look like they were going to move anytime soon so Shigure and Ayame looked at each other and shrugged.

"Now where is Yuki?" said Shigure.

"He must be foraging around with his rodent like abilities." Said Ayame as he chuckled at his funny.

"You know, that wasn't humorous the first time." Said Shigure.

"Yes it was." Said Ayame.  Then Yuki walked around the corner with bulging cheeks and the block of granola in his hands.

"This is REALLY good!" he said, talking with his mouth full of food.

"SEE?!" said Ayame, pointing at Yuki.  "I know my own brother!"

"Yuki, that granola is probably a gwazillion years old." Said Shigure.  "The last person who was the rat most likely had that too.  And the person before that."

"That's why it's mine now." Said Yuki as if that made any sense as he continued gnawing at the block.

"No, that's why it's really old." Shigure tried to explain but Yuki was going to eat that granola until hell froze over.

MEANWHILE!!!

Hatori…yes, he was still driving.  It was actually a very peaceful ride but Hatori had to every once and a while check to make sure that Akito wasn't falling out the window because he had INSISTED on just hanging out of it mysteriously while flapping in the wind.

"KYO!!" screamed Kagura randomly as if she just remembered that Kyo was sitting a few feet away from her.  "If you don't hug me, I'm going to scream!"

"You're already screaming!" Kyo pointed out.

"Come on!!" said Kagura, leaning over Tohru who was just sitting there obliviously with horseshoe eyes.

"Leave me alone!!" Kyo yelled.

But…oh wouldn't you know it?!  Because Kagura was leaning over Tohru, Tohru was pushed over RIGHT ON TOP OF KYO who immediately turned into a cat with a POOF!

"NOW LOOK WHAT YOU DID!!" Kyo yelled at Kagura.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Kagura HOLL-ered.  "TOHRU did it!"

And Tohru only said, "YAY!!"

"Well, I'm going to go and sit in the front." Said Kyo as he leapt up in a single bound and landed in the front seat.  There was room for him, of course, since Akito was half out the window.

"Kyo, put your seatbelt on." Said Hatori, noting the fact that Kyo was now in the front seat.

"It's not like you're going to get into a car accident!" said Kyo as if he KNEW.

"Well at least get into your own seat since that's Akito's." said Hatori.

"He's not USING it!!" said Kyo.  "Why don't I ever get to sit in the front?!"

"You never ask." Hatori replied.

"I ASK EVERY DAY!!!!" yelled Kyo even though it might very well just be a lie to get his point across.  And then there was a poof and he turned back to normal RIGHT THEN AND THERE!!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

"Now get your clothes on." Hatori instructed.

"They're in the back seat!" Kyo yelled as if that posed as a problem.

"Then get them." Said Hatori.

"There are girls back there!" Kyo yelled.

"So?" Said Hatori.

"I'm…NAKED…" said Kyo quietly for the first time in his entire life.

"Oh." Said Hatori, reaching back to grab the clothes.  He turned around for a SPLIT second to see where the clothes were located, grabbed them and handed them to Kyo.  Kyo began getting dressed but he noticed that Hatori was watching him.

"Why are you watching me?!" he demanded.

"Oh, sorry." Said Hatori, facing forward to see that he was heading towards a curve on the road and there was a huge tree…BEING there.  Before he could react or realize that he was just about to drive into a tree that was being there, he had already crashed into it and since this was some sort of freak old car, no matter how unrealistic it seems, there were NO AIRBAGS so not only did Hatori hit his head on the steering wheel, but Kyo was launched through the windshield and sent hurtling into the air.  Luckily, since cats always land on their feet, Kyo…well… he landed on his feet.  AND because of the sudden force of hitting the tree, Akito fell out of the window since he was stupid enough to hang out the window like a fool in the first place.

Unfortunately, the gas tank was punctured and since this is a freak OLD car, the gas tank was right over the engine so the hot engine caught fire and immediately exploded into flames.

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

WHO DESIGNED THIS FREAK OLD CAR!?!?!?

MEANWHILE!!!

"I am so hungry." Said Shigure, opening the refrigerator and looking around as if it would change from last time.  "Nothing is in here.  Except baking soda and Tupperware.  And Yuki won't even share his granola."

"It's mine!" said Yuki.  "You said yourself that the Year of the Rat people owned it!"

"If my stomach growls one more time then I'm going to turn into Black Haru." Said Haru randomly as he let the butterfly fly away.

"Aww…" said Momiji who had STILL been staring at it.

"Oh like we can't handle little midget Black Haru." Said Ayame.

"Ayame, don't provoke him." Said Shigure.  "You'll only make him turn into Black Haru faster!"

"Good!" said Ayame.  "It'll get it out of his system and give us something to do with our time until Hatori comes back with armfuls of food!!"

"That made me hungrier." Whined Haru.

"Just think of what we could be having once he comes back!" said Ayame as he started fantasizing.  "Hamburgers… cheeseburgers… steak… other things made out of cows…"

"That wasn't funny." Said Haru, looking ALMOST disgusted.  "That wasn't even CLEVER."

"Ayame, you just got dissed by a six-year-old." Shigure chuckled.

"NO!!" Ayame argued.

"Nice argument." Said Haru.

"It happened again!!" Shigure laughed heartily as he clutched his stomach like Santa Claus as if it was REALLY that funny.

"I could STEP on him!" said Ayame, trying to make a brilliant comeback.

"I could step on you…when we're animals." Said Haru.

"Ayame, stop letting Haru dis you." Said Shigure, immediately stopping his laughter.  "Twice is okay but three times is just making us older wave look bad."

"It's not like his comebacks are CLEVER or anything!" yelled Ayame.

"They're better than yours." Said Haru.

"Okay, Haru, that's enough." Said Shigure.  "It's not funny anymore."

"Whatever." Said Haru as he turned around and faced the wall to count the cracks in the old peeling paint.

MEANWHILE!!!

"Tohru, how many times have I told you not to throw me into the lake after a turn into a seahorse?" Hatori questioned Tohru as he walked out of the omnipotent lake that was REALLY big, fully clothed but also very wet.  "And why did you even hug me in the first place?"

"I thought your head was stuck and I figured the only way to get you out was to turn you into the seahorse!" Tohru explained.

"I was practically out of the car." Hatori said.  "I think you just enjoy turning us into animals.  You do, don't you?"

"No I do not!" Tohru gasped.  Then she turned around to Kyo who was standing there because he felt like it.  "Oh Kyo!  You're okay after being thrown through the windshield!!  YAY!!"  Then she hugged Kyo and he, of course, turned into a cat!  

"What'd you do that for?!" Kyo yelled.

"I'm sorry!!  That was an accident!!" Tohru said nervously.  And then she looked at Hatori.  "I forgot for a minute!"

"No.  You enjoy it." Hatori said with a nod.  At that point, he took the time to scan his surroundings while Tohru argued with him that she did NOT enjoy turning them into animals.  He then noticed that the grocery store was AWK!!  RIGHT THERE!!!

"LET'S GO!!" cheered Kagura since she hasn't said anything yet.

MEANWHILE!!!

"Haru, give us the ladder back!" Shigure yelled.  Haru had climbed up into the loft and pulled the ladder up with him so he was unreachable.

"Make me!" Haru said, poking his head out where they could see him.  He then disappeared into the loft where he could not be seen.  "I HOPE YOU DIDN'T LIKE THIS!!!" he yelled suddenly.

"YES I DO!!" yelled Shigure.

"It's not yours, Shigure!" yelled Haru.  "It's Ayame's!"  At the sound of his name, Ayame rounded the corner.

"Yes?" he said.

"I think Haru's going to do something horrible to your poor innocent shirt." Said Momiji.

"WHAT?!" Ayame yelled, running over to where Shigure was.

"I thought you were getting the ladder in the garage!" Shigure yelled at Ayame just as they heard a loud RRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIP!!!

"MY SHIRT!!!" Ayame gasped, slapping his hands on his cheeks.

"No, it's a dress!" Haru said, dropping the tattered piece of clothing over the edge of the loft and let it flutter down to the ground.

"I…LOVED this!" said Ayame, catching what remained of his piece of clothing.

"Hope you can catch!" said Haru as he put Ayame's suitcase right on the edge of the loft and started throwing down all his clothes and other accessories over it like it was confetti.  "WOW!!  A brick!"  And then he dropped it down RIGHT ON AYAME SINCE HE HAS SUCH GREAT AIM!!!

"HEY!!!" yelled Ayame.

"IT'S RAINING!!!" Haru said as if it was a party.

"Ayame, why did you have a brick in your suitcase?" Shigure questioned.

"LOOK!!  ANOTHER BRICK!!"

"I didn't!  He must have pulled it out of the wall!"

"A TABLE!!"

"He can't do that!"

"He just pushed a table over the edge, why can't he pull out some bricks from the wall!"

"WOW!!  A MATTRESS!!"

"Stop throwing stuff over the edge, Haru!" Shigure yelled.  "You're making a mess of the lodge!!"

"AN ANVIL!!"

"What?" Shigure yelled.  "Not only is there NOT an anvil up there but there is no way that you would be able to lift it!"

But he was surprised because…AN ANVIL CAME DOWN AND BARELY MISSED HIM!!!

"My anvil!!" Ayame gasped but then he paused.  "Wait…no, I didn't bring an anvil."

"And…a LADDER!!" Haru continued as he then tossed the ladder down over the edge.  Then there was silence for a moment.  "Oops."

"All right, we're coming up there!" Shigure yelled as he grabbed the ladder and tried to put it in place, making a simple task a whole lot harder than it actually was by spinning around in circles while holding the ladder and knocking over many breakable items before finally resting it into place.  He and Ayame climbed up the ladder cautiously and looked around just in case Haru happened to come across another anvil.

But, much to their horrid surprise, they discovered Haru sitting on one of the beds facing the wall and hunched over.

"Go see what he's doing." Said Ayame, pushing Shigure forward.

"Why should I?!" demanded Shigure.  "You're the one who provoked him in the first place!"

But then they decided telepathically to just go over at the same time so they did only to find that Haru was coloring.

"What are you doing?" Shigure asked, sounding quite annoyed.

"Coloring." Haru replied very stoically.

"Where did you get that coloring book?" Ayame questioned.

Haru looked around and then pointed vaguely at the floor.

"Why don't you color downstairs?" suggested Shigure.

"Okay." Said Haru as he got off the bed, grabbed all the colored pencils and the coloring book and climbed down the ladder.

MEANWHILE!!!

"All right, I'm ready to pay now." Hatori came VERY close to calling as Kyo, Kagura and Tohru came around the corner with a product or two in their hands.  "Okay, Tohru, did you remember to get Yuki something too?"

"Yes!" said Tohru.  "I got him some leeks, onions, cheese and miso because he asked me to get that stuff for him!"

"I HATE THAT STUFF!!!" screamed Kyo.

"And what did you get yourself?" Hatori asked since he is EVER so patient and good at ignoring Kyo.

"Strawberries!!" Tohru exclaimed as she handed all the stuff to Hatori.

"Here's all my stuff." Said Kagura, putting a whole basket full of assorted junk food on the table.

"And…Momiji's snacks?" Hatori asked.

"I got him some…celery." Kagura replied, putting the celery on the table as well.

"Is that all?" questioned Hatori.

"Yes." Kagura answered, nodding.

"And…Kyo?" Hatori said, turning to Kyo who was still fuming about the fact that Tohru had picked out leeks, onions and miso.  "What did you get for yourself and Haru?"

"Well, I was going to get milk for Haru since I don't really know what he likes but then I remembered that I wanted milk and not to mention the fact that it would be a waste of money since he can probably produce his OWN milk!!"  And then he exploded with cruel chuckling.

"Kyo, that's not funny." Said Hatori.

"Sorry." Said Kyo.

"So what did you get him?" Hatori led.

"I also got myself some tuna fish, mayonnaise and some bread so I can make myself a sandwich." Kyo continued.

"And what did you get…"

"I wasn't DONE!!  I was GOING to say that I also got myself some fish sticks for breakfast and some…"

"Fish sticks for breakfast?" said everyone in the entire store, including the very patient man behind the counter as well as the very patient people who were waiting in line and the very patient Hatori.

"YES!!" yelled Kyo.  "You're going to have to COOK them for me of course!!"

"All right, that's all well and good but what did you get for Haru?" Hatori said.

"I ALSO got myself some Swedish Fish…I'm not getting them just because they have the word 'fish' in the name, like you probably think, I just like them.  The same with these Goldfish that I got for myself too."

"Kyo, I don't want to hear about what you got for yourself anymore." Hatori confessed.  "Just give me everything that you got yourself and tell me what you got Haru so I'll know that you got him something."

"I don't know…can't he just eat grass?" Kyo asked.

At that point, Hatori decided that he would just reach off the screen and grab something for Haru since Kyo OBVIOUSLY didn't get him anything.  After purchasing all their items, they all frolicked outside except for maybe Hatori who just walked out.

"Oh no." said Hatori as he just realized something.  (since he did.)  "Now we have to walk home with all this stuff." And HE was especially upset because he had to carry most of the stuff and would have to deal with all the whining children.

"I DON'T WANNA WALK HOME!!!!" Kyo screamed so the whole world shook.

"I don't either…" said Kagura slowly.

"Can we call someone?" asked Tohru.

But RIGHT THEN AND THERE, a car drove by.  

And then another one drove up and stopped in front of them.  "Wow!  Imagine seeing you guys all the way out here!" said the man in the car as he rolled the window down.

"SHISHOU!!!" HOLL-ered Kyo louder than before.

"KYO!!!" Shishou-sama bellowed knavishly as he reached through the window with his arms outstretched.  Kyo leapt into them and they proceeded to nuzzle each other for a minute or two before Hatori finally cleared his throat.

"Are you by any chance going in that direction?" Hatori asked, pointing in the direction of the little cabin.

"Um…yeah." Said Shishou-sama.

There was a pause.

"Can we have a ride?" Hatori prompted.

"OH SURE!!!" laughed Shishou-sama as he pressed a button and all the doors in the whole car opened since he has a freak NEW car as opposed to a freak OLD car.

Everyone piled into the car and Shishou-sama began a-driving contently with horseshoe eyes.  Luckily, they didn't crash or anything.

"So why are you far away from your house and car-less?" asked Shishou-sama randomly.

"Well, we got into a little accident." Hatori replied.  "Right…there." And they passed the mound of burning rubble right then and there.  At that, Hatori spotted a little gingerbread figure lying very close to the burning car.  After a moment of being in a stupefied state, Hatori demanded that Shishou-sama turn the car around.

"Whyever for?" asked Shishou-sama.

"Because…" Hatori answered as Shishou-sama turned around and they stopped by what was left of the car.  He hurried over, grabbed Akito, tossed him in the car and then got back in.  Shishou-sama stared at Hatori for a minute and then started the car up and began a-driving AGAIN.

A little while later, they came to the cabin and after a very teary goodbye, Shishou-sama was gone, his only point being to get them home from the grocery store because no matter how unrealistic this story is, no one, not even a cartoon character, is going to walk thirty miles with a bunch of kids and lots of groceries.

"We're back!!" Tohru said happily as she kicked the door open.  Everyone turned around and looked at the ones in the doorway.

"Hatori, did you go swimming in your clothes again?!" demanded Ayame.  "How many times do I have to tell you that you're not supposed to do that?!"

Like always, Hatori ignored Ayame and started putting the groceries away since he is SO mature.

"Haru, would it offend you if I made hamburgers?" Hatori asked.  "I wasn't thinking when I bought it."

"Obviously not." Said Haru.

"Haru's been really vicious with the dissing lately." Said Shigure.

"That was vicious?" Hatori said with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm not hungry anyway." Said Haru as he went back to his coloring.

"Neither am I." Said Yuki who was still gnawing away at his granola.

"Well, we'll have hamburgers anyway and Haru can have something else." Said Hatori who then took this opportunity to look around at the cabin's current condition.  What with the…mattress, table, anvil, bricks and all the breakable items in ten thousand pieces…that made him stop to think just what went on.

"Okay…what happened?" he asked Ayame and Shigure.

"Haru turned black." Said Ayame.

"Why?" Hatori asked.

"Because Ayame was threatening to eat hamburgers." Shigure answered.

Hatori then looked at the hamburger package he had in his hand. "We'll just have pizza tonight." Said Hatori as he pulled some frozen pizza out of a bag and then put the hamburgers in the freezer.

"YAY!!!" cheered all the kids as Hatori put the pizza in the oven.

"WHEN is it going to be ready?!" Kyo yelled, turning on the stove light and watching it cook.  "Is it done yet?!"

"When this timer reaches zero, it'll be ready." Said Hatori setting the timer on thirteen minutes.

"Okay." Said Kyo, sitting up on the counter about a foot away from the timer to make sure he got a good seat.  "I'll tell you when it's ready." And then he fixed his eyes on the timer and didn't appear to be moving…or blinking…AT ALL.  Hatori waved his hand in front of Kyo but he didn't flinch.

"We should remember this." Said Shigure.

"Now it's going to be quiet for thirteen minutes." Said Hatori.

"Twelve, actually." Said Ayame.

"Maybe we could try and get this mattress back upstairs." Said Hatori.

"NO!!" yelled Momiji.  "We're playing on it!!"  And then the three elders watched as Momiji, Tohru and Kagura played happily on the mattress as if it was really all THAT fun.

"This is REALLY good!" said Yuki as he walked by with his granola.

"I'm going to take that away from you just because you're enjoying it way too much." Said Ayame.

"But it's GOOD!!" said Yuki.

"THAT'S IT!!!" yelled Ayame, tearing the granola out of his hands.  "You've pushed me beyond my limit!  I'm going to put this someplace where you'll never find it and where you can't reach it either!"  He then grabbed Tohru who was enjoying herself on the mattress and then thrust her into Yuki who, of course, turned into a rat.  Ayame then dropped a spare shoebox that was lying around on top of Yuki so it was like a little cage and then ran off laughing diabolically.

He was trying to find the best spot for the granola to be hidden.  He finally came to the conclusion that Yuki would NEVER go on the roof so after retrieving the ladder from the garage that we stated previously existed, he climbed up and was just about to drop the granola and run when he saw a little backpack and a pink sleeping bag sitting on the roof.

"So here's Yuki's stuff…" said Ayame, opening the backpack to see all of Yuki's clothes and his toothbrush and other things like that.  He then zipped the backpack up, dropped the granola and climbed down the ladder, leaving all the stuff on the roof.  INTENTIONALLY!!!


	4. A Cat in a Fishbowl and a Stolen Shower!

When he returned, it was absolutely silent in the room.  Everyone was being utterly quiet and still as if life didn't continue when Ayame wasn't in the room.

"Why's it so quiet in here?!" bellowed Ayame.

"We were enjoying the silence." Said Hatori, looking up from his best selling novel.  (He and Shigure were both reading one.)

"Maybe Ayame will watch the timer too." Said Shigure.  At that, Ayame looked over at the timer to see all the kids huddled around it.

"What are you looking at?" Kagura whispered to Kyo who was still entranced.  There were only six minutes left!!  Kyo only hushed her without taking his eyes off the timer.  The other ones who were not Kyo shrugged and watched the timer too because they were hoping something exciting would happen.

Ayame TRIED not to look interested as he made his way back over to where the 'adults' were but he didn't really want to read so he didn't belong ANYWHERE!!  So he took out a Vogue Magazine and started reading that.

And it was absolutely silent once again for six more minutes when suddenly…

"IT'S READY!!!" yelled Kyo at the exact same time as the dinger on the oven.  Everyone who was crowded around him were now surprised and taken aback and they most likely would have had heart attacks and died if they were old people or had a bad family history of heart problems.

So they jumped off the stove as Hatori retrieved his oven mitts and pulled the pizza out of the oven.  It was all freezer burned and nasty even though he just bought it but that's what you get for buying cheap frozen pizza!!

"YAY!!!" cheered everyone.

THEN he cut it up into ten pieces and put them on paper plates.  They all sat around the table and started eating.

All of a sudden, Tohru started giggling uncontrollably.  Everyone tried to ignore her but she just started giggling more loudly as if she were now trying to get everyone to ask her what was so funny.

"Fine, what's so funny?" asked Hatori.

"Oh it's nothing." Said Tohru with another giggle.

"Fine." Said Hatori as he continued eating.

"HEY!!" yelled Kyo, slamming his hand down on the table.  "I wanna know what's so funny!!"

"YEAH!!!" cheered all the other people.

"Never mind…" said Tohru.

Everyone stared at each other and then just continued eating.  There was absolute silence.  All that was heard was the sound of Haru chewing very loudly and slowly with his mouth open like some sort of…I don't know…kinda like a crazy cow.  I guess.

"You know what I've been wondering…" started Shigure randomly.  "I was thinking about this because Hatori has been so frequently turned into a seahorse and then tossed into some water but…what if you were to toss Hatori into a fishbowl while he was a seahorse and then he turned back?"

"Then he would be a big naked man in a fishbowl." Said Ayame casually.

"EWWW!!!" screamed Tohru and Kagura.

"COOL!!!" screamed all the little boys.

"No." said Hatori plainly.

"I think the fishbowl would break or something." Said Shigure with a shrug.

"Unless it was a heavy duty fishbowl." Ayame pointed out.

"In that case, Hatori would be squashed to death and all of his innards would ooze out of the fishbowl." Shigure said.

"EWWW!!!" Tohru and Kagura yelled again.

"COOL!!!" screamed all the little boys again.

"Can we change the subject?" asked Hatori.

"Well, what do you think on the matter?" asked Shigure.

Hatori sighed.  "Well, I suppose I would just be outside the fishbowl magically." He said.

"What if it was just your foot in the fishbowl?" asked Yuki.

"Or his HEAD!!" laughed Kyo.

"THAT would be funny." Said Ayame.

"And the only way to get his head out of the fishbowl would be to turn back into a seahorse." Said Tohru.

"Can we make it so that someone else is stuck in the fishbowl?" asked Hatori.

"But why would anyone else be in a fishbowl in the first place?" asked Shigure.

"Yeah, you're the only one who needs water." Said Ayame.

"I don't need water." Said Hatori.

"Yes you do." Said Ayame.

Hatori stared at Ayame for a moment.  "No I don't." he said.

"Why does it matter?" asked Shigure.  "It's not like this will ever happen."

"I would prefer it if the children weren't envisioning my head being stuck in a fishbowl." Hatori said plainly.  "Or getting any ideas for that matter."

"Fine, say it was the NEXT guy who is the Year of the Seahorse person." Ayame said.

"Year of the DRAGON." Hatori corrected.

"You say dragon, I say seahorse." Said Ayame.

"It's a dragon." Hatori said.

"But YOU'RE a seahorse." Said Ayame.

Hatori didn't look as though he was going to retaliate.

"So what were we talking about?" asked Shigure.

"Hatori getting his head stuck in a fishbowl." Ayame replied.

"Let's put Kyo in the fishbowl." Said Hatori.

"WHY ME?!" demanded Kyo.

"Because you'd fit." Hatori answered.

"Who would put a cat in a fishbowl?!" Kyo yelled.  "I hope YOU wouldn't, Hatori!"

"Maybe I do." Said Hatori.  "I have a cat at home and he lives in a fishbowl."

Little kids never notice when older people are kidding.  "That's really mean." Said Kyo.  "I'm going to come over to your house some day and free him."  He suddenly looked very surprised.  "Wait, does he swim around in the fishbowl?  Cats don't like water."

"No, there's no water." Hatori lied.  "He just lives in the fishbowl.  There's even a cover with little air holes so that he can breath.  Sometimes I let him out and I occasionally feed him but only when I'm in a good mood and I don't forget."

The room fell silent for a minute.

"Seriously?" said Ayame finally.

"No." said Hatori.  "I don't even have a cat."

"I don't believe you." Said Kyo.  "I am freeing your cat someday."

"Good luck." Said Hatori.

It was quiet for another minute.

"Wait, no really, do you actually have a cat in a fishbowl at your house?" asked Shigure.  "Is that why you were so sensitive about the fishbowl conversation we were having and wanted to put Kyo into a fishbowl as if that made any sense at all?"

"Forget about the cat in a fishbowl." Said Hatori with a sigh.

"Kyo, you better watch out or Hatori will put you in a fishbowl." Said Yuki with a devious grin.

"He WOULDN'T!!" Kyo yelled, looking right at Hatori.

"I'm not going to put anyone in a fishbowl as long as no one puts me in a fishbowl." Hatori said.

"But you put your cat in a fishbowl!" said Kagura.

"I don't have a cat." Hatori said.

"But you just said you did!!" yelled Momiji.

"It was a JOKE." Hatori replied.

"No wonder I thought you were serious." Said Shigure with a laugh.  "You are the last person to tell a joke so I didn't think that it was one.  I was pretty sure that you didn't have a cat in a fishbowl since I've been over your house plenty of times and never saw one but then I stopped to think that maybe you hid it in the closet so that I wouldn't think that you were a psycho or anything."

"Oh." Said Hatori.

Then everyone finished their pizza at the same time except for Haru who was still on his first bite and Akito who wasn't even at the dinner table so his plate remained untouched.

"Haru, hurry up!" commanded Kyo since Hatori had previously stated that they would not be leaving the table until everyone was finished.

"What?" asked Haru as he turned his head obliviously.

"Eat faster!!" Kyo yelled.

"Kyo, be quiet." Said Hatori.

"Yeah or else Hatori will put you in a fishbowl." Threatened Ayame.

"NO WAY!!!" yelled Kyo.  "I WOULDN'T LET HIM!!"

Hatori sighed and got up, making his way over to the stove.

"You weren't supposed to get up!!" yelled Kyo as Hatori started pressing a few buttons on the timer until it was up to twenty.

"Kyo, when this timer hits zero, something special will happen." Hatori said, sitting back down.

Kyo's eyes lit up.  "What?" he asked.

"It's a surprise." Hatori answered.

"Oh." Said Kyo as he turned around and faced the timer and stared at it without blinking.

"Only twenty?" asked Shigure.

"I figure we could work our way up to an hour." Hatori replied.  "Any more than that and it would be unhealthy."

So they all continued to sit and wait for Haru to finish.  He just kept chewing and chewing and suddenly…HE SWALLOWED!!!  Everyone gave a sigh of relief and leaned back in their chairs and were JUST about to get up when he took another bite of his pizza.

"Okay, we can get up." Hatori decided since he didn't want to sit there anymore.  Everyone cheered and left Haru alone at the table.

"Maybe we should move Hatori's mattress back upstairs." Said Ayame.

"Why is my mattress down here anyway?" asked Hatori.  "I find it a bit strange that all of Ayame's stuff was shredded by Haru…yet Haru decided to throw MY mattress over the edge."

"Um…he didn't know which one was mine?" Ayame suggested but you could just TELL that he had went and switched mattresses with Hatori so he wouldn't have to move his mattress back upstairs.

"Let's all work TOGETHER!!!" Shigure said excitedly for no reason.  The three of them lifted the mattress up over their heads and were just about to start to make the difficult climb up the ladder when suddenly, they heard the sound of thunder booming around the house.

"EEEK!!!" screamed Tohru as she latched onto the closest thing to her which just so happened to be Shigure who turned into a dog.  Since he obviously could not hold the mattress anymore, he was crushed by it!!  OH DEAR!!!

"I'M SO SCARED!!!" Kagura whined as she wandered over to where Kyo was with the timer which stood at fourteen.  She looked at him so see that he was not looking at the timer but he was, in fact, sleeping like a widdle baby!  Kagura frowned.  "WAKE UP!!!" she shrieked and Kyo immediately jerked his head up but still looked a little sleepy.  "Comfort me…" she said, hugging him.

"Okay, whatever." Said Kyo, patting her on the head, while lowering his own head back onto the table.  Haru just watched, still chewing.

Then lightning flashed, lighting up the entire house before making it dark.  THE POWER HAD GONE OUT!!!  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

All the little kids screamed and cried.

"It's all under control!" Ayame declared, whipping out a flashlight.

"Well done, Ayame." Said Hatori, looking almost impressed but also a little envious that Ayame had whipped out HIS flashlight before Hatori could whip out HIS.  He couldn't whip it out now because he didn't want to look like he was following one of Ayame's ideas.

"I'm so scared!!" Momiji wailed as he burst out into tears.

"All right, I'll go find some candles or something." Said Hatori as he pulled his flashlight out NOW.  "Ayame, you stay here and do nothing like you usually do.  Shigure, since you're a dog, just go and look for all the kids and round them up."

"CAN DO!!" said Ayame and Shigure at the same time.

Shigure started looking around for all the children.  He stumbled upon Kyo and Kagura who were still sitting at the kitchen table and Haru who was ALSO still sitting at the kitchen table…eating.  As if nothing had happened.  Tohru and Momiji were hugging each other and crying.  (Yes, this means that Momiji IS a rabbit at this time.)  Akito was where he had been for the whole vacation.  He didn't actually know WHAT Yuki was doing but he did know where he was because his eyes glowed.  Yuki could probably see in the dark just as well as he could see in the light.  HAW HAW HAW!!!

Ayame was doing nothing.  Just like Hatori had told him.

Hatori returned from the closet with some candles.  He set them up on the table in the middle of the room and lit them up so it emitted a splendiferous glow.

At that moment, Shigure went POOF and turned back into a human!!  YAY!!  He quickly located his clothes and put them on in record-breaking time before anyone could see him.  All the children crowded around the candles and they all paused for a minute.

Suddenly, there was another crash of thunder and then it immediately started pouring.

"Well…it could be worse." Said Shigure.

"Why did you say that?" asked Hatori as a drip started dripping EXACTLY on his head.  He went and fetched a few pots and tried to put them underneath all the drips as everyone just sat and watched him.  They COULD have helped.  But they didn't feel like it.  I mean, Ayame had held the flashlight!

"Let's tell scary stories!!!" said Ayame once Hatori had returned.

"I'm still eating." Said Haru who had brought his plate of pizza over to the table with the candles.

"Isn't that cold by now?" asked Momiji.

"A little." Said Haru.  But he didn't do anything about it.

Kyo had brought the timer with him and was hardly able to keep his eyes open while watching it.  He NEEDED to stay awake for only TWO MORE MINUTES.

"Must…see…surprise…" Kyo said as he yawned right then and there.

Hatori looked at his watch.  "Kyo, it's only seven thirty." He said.

"The rain always makes Kyo tired." Said Kagura as she started stroking his head while saying, 'There, there.'  Kyo would have PROBABLY yelled at her if it wasn't raining but instead he only kind of just dropped off right then and there.

"yay," Said everyone as quietly as they could.

And then Kagura took the opportunity to reposition Kyo so that it appeared that he had fallen asleep on her lap.  "He fell asleep on me!" she said happily.

"Did he now?" asked Hatori.

At that moment, the timer went 'BING!!'  Kyo's eyes opened and he held up the timer to see that it was at zero.

"You missed the surprise, Kyo." Said Shigure.

"Aww…" said Kyo sadly.

"There, there." Said Kagura as she continued stroking him and he was out just a few minutes later.  YAY!!

"Maybe we should ALL go to bed!" said Ayame.

"NO!!!" screamed everyone.

"Shhh…" Hatori said, eyeing Kyo.

"Oh, so now we all have to be quiet just because Kyo's asleep?" said Yuki, looking annoyed.

"I'll put him upstairs." Said Hatori as he stood up and was about to take Kyo away from Kagura but she clung onto his head.

"NO!!" she yelled.  "He fell asleep on ME!!"

"Kagura, please stop yelling like that." Hatori said.

"If you try and take him away from me then I'll start screaming!" Kagura threatened.

"You're already screaming." Said Hatori.

"Then leave us alone." Said Kagura as if that really made any sense.

Hatori decided to say whatever on this matter.  "Whatever." Said Hatori.

"So…" said Ayame.  "Like I was saying, let's tell scary stories!!  I'll start since I have the flashlight."  Ayame cleared his throat and held the flashlight under his chin.  "One morning, the extremely handsome and perfect Ayame Souma woke up and looked at himself in the mirror only to see THAT HE SUDDENLY LOOKED LIKE YUKI!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

"There, there," said Kagura when she noticed that Kyo had started to twitch.

"That wasn't scary at all!!" Yuki yelled, slamming his hand down on the table which caused a candle to fall off the table onto the rug.  The rug then burst into flames.

"Oh my." Said Shigure as he reached behind his back and pulled out a fire extinguisher.  Then he sprayed it a lot more than he needed to and ruined all the candles and sprayed all the people just for fun.

"Shigure, why did you do that?" Hatori asked.  "This was my last shirt.  And now we have no more candles."

"Oh, no 'Nice job, Shigure!' or 'Thanks for saving our lives, Shigure!'  Not even a pat on the back!" said Shigure, looking offended.

"That's not funny…" whined Kyo as he wiped some fire extinguisher juice off his face.  Then Kagura told him there there and wiped his face for him.

"We all need to take showers now." Said Hatori who was still stuck on the fact that he didn't have any more shirts.  He grabbed the flashlight and went over to the bathroom and opened the door only to discover that…THE SHOWER HAD BEEN STOLEN!!!  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!  He paused for a minute and then returned to where everyone else was.  "Someone stole our shower.  They left a note that said, 'I have your shower now.  Bwa ha ha ha ha!' and it's signed with a skull with crossbones."

"Someone stole our shower?" Shigure said with a raised eyebrow.

"Can you even do that?" wondered Ayame.

"That's okay, we can all just go out and stand in the rain!" said Momiji.

"You got my pizza dirty." Said Haru since he probably just noticed.

"You can wash it in the rain too." Said Tohru.

"But then it'll be all wet." Haru complained.

"But it's going to get all wet in your mouth ANYWAY!" Tohru pointed out.

"You can just have Akito's pizza." Said Ayame.

"Let's go stand in the rain!!" said Momiji since no one acknowledged him the first time around.

"I don't think we have any other choice." Said Hatori.

"I'll wait for you in here!" said Shigure with a chuckle.  After all, he wasn't covered in fire extinguisher juice.

"Let's all go, I guess." Said Ayame slowly as they all got up.

"Come on, Kyo, we all have to go in the rain to clean off!" said Kagura as she tried to pull him to his feet but they were both all slippery because of the FEJ.  (Fire extinguisher juice)

"No way!" Kyo yelled.  But Hatori easily just walked over to him and put him under his arm and carried him outside kicking and screaming.  (Just to clarify this, Kyo is under Hatori's arm and Kyo is kicking and screaming.)

"Hey, it's my sleeping bag!!" Yuki exclaimed as he ran over to a little pink sleeping bag that was in the mud and then noticed a little backpack.  "And my backpack!"  And then he saw something that made his day.  "MY GRANOLA!!!"  He picked it up but it immediately disintegrated in his hands.  Yuki then got so sad that he burst into tears.

"I'VE GOT FEJ IN MY EYES!!!" Momiji cried running over to the closest thing to him which was a tree.  He ran INTO it, actually.

"Okay, I think we're clean enough." Said Hatori.

"I wish I had some shampoo!" said Ayame.  "Oh wait…I do."  And then he pulled some shampoo out of his pocket and started cleansing his hair.

"I'm going back inside." Hatori said but then he remembered that Kyo was still crying under his arm.  He stopped and wondered why he hadn't noticed that Kyo was there but then he figured that maybe he had just become so accustomed to Kyo's LOUDNESS that he had learned to just block it out.  Kagura ran over to Kyo and started stroking his forehead while saying 'Violin' over and over again.

Then Hatori went back inside and everyone followed him except for Ayame who was still washing the shampoo out of his hair.

"Now I'm wet!!" wailed Kyo pathetically as Hatori kind of half dropped him on the floor.  "I can't find my clothes…" he complained as he curled up into a little ball.

"I'll help you find them!" said Kagura as she fished through his backpack for his pajamas.

Everyone else decided that they would get their pajamas on as well.  Hatori, Ayame and Shigure all went upstairs to the loft to find their pajamas and Hatori hung his wet clothes over the railing along with all his other wet and stiff and dirty clothes.

"I have nothing else to wear besides my pajamas." Hatori said.

"You can wear some of MY clothes!" said Shigure.

"And mine!" Ayame said.

"Um…maybe my stuff will be dry by the morning." Hatori replied.  Then the three went downstairs to see that everyone was ALREADY IN THEIR PAJAMAS!!!

"We can't lie out our sleeping bags because there FEJ all over the place." Said Tohru.

"And I'm still hungry." Said Haru.

"And I don't want to sleep in the dark again!!" whined Momiji.  "Can we sleep up in the loft with you guys?"

"No." said Ayame.

"Maybe we should let them." Said Hatori.  "That way we could not only keep a better eye on them but we could wait until the morning to clean up all this FEJ.  Shigure."

"What?" asked Shigure.

"You're cleaning up the FEJ since it's your fault that it's here." Hatori said.

"Excuse me but I'm a HERO." Said Shigure, looking appalled.  "I think that in a way to thank me, you should all clean it up for me."

"We'll talk about it in the morning." Hatori said.

"Are we really going to bed now?" Ayame asked, looking at his watch to see that it was only eight o'clock.

"Well, we have nothing else to do." Hatori replied.

Then they all just kind of grabbed their sleeping bags and went upstairs without saying anything else.  They all lied out their pink sleeping bags and Kyo's cow sleeping bag and climbed in where they snuggled up for the night!  Except not really because there were so many drips and they were really annoying and not to mention the fact that it was only eight o'clock AND it was about a zillion degrees so everyone then had to get OUT of their sleeping bags.  And Momiji was whining because it was dark.  And there was thunder and lightning.  And Kyo would randomly wake up in the middle of the night and start whining for no reason.  And then they had to bring Akito upstairs since they had forgotten about him AGAIN.  And Haru's stomach was growling all night since all he had to eat for the entire day was about three bites of pizza.  And Kagura continuously talking to Kyo and comforting him.  And Ayame's snoring.  And Yuki wasn't tired at all so he kept getting up and walking around.  And Shigure kept yelling at everyone else to be quiet.  And Hatori…he was…being NORMAL.  He was the one being annoyed by all this.  But other than all these reasons, everyone had a VERY peaceful sleep.


	5. Twister and Hatori's Secret!

THE NEXT MORNING!!!!

The next morning was BEAUTIFUL!!!

IF YOU LIKE HORRID RAIN AND THUNDER AND LIGHTNING AND LEAKY HOUSES AND OTHER UNPLEASANT THINGS THAT WE'RE MAKING THEM GO THROUGH ONLY FOR OUR SICK PLEASURE!!!

HAW HAW HAW!!

So anyway, the morning came and Ayame went through his morning stretches like always.  But unfortunately, he forgot that all the kids were upstairs in the loft with him but I guess that didn't really bother HIM, but it bothered Hatori so Hatori made sure to remind everyone to keep their eyes shut.  Of course, they were sleeping and they WOULD have kept their eyes shut if Hatori hadn't awakened them to tell them to keep their eyes shut.

So now…now everyone's awake.  Thanks to Hatori.

"GEE THANKS HATORI!!!" screamed Shigure.

"Why is it that Shigure can have conversations with the narrator?" wondered no one in particular.

"Because I am an aspiring novelist myself." Shigure replied pompously.

"I'm hungry!!" whined Momiji.

"Let's go downstairs and eat…I guess." Said Hatori.  They all said HOO-RAY and paraded down the ladder.  Well, except for Kyo because he was still sleepy because it was still raining.  And Kagura who wanted to stay with Kyo, and Yuki who ALWAYS sleeps late except for yesterday and Haru who sleeps late because we say so and Akito who is just a lump.

So, Ayame, Shigure, Hatori, Tohru and Momiji paraded down the ladder!!

Only to find it…PARTIALLY FLOODED!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Yes, they HAD forgotten to change all the pots so they were all overflowing and there was… I don't know what would be realistic… so let's just say two feet!  But of course, two feet is a lot for someone who is only three and a half feet tall.

"WOW!!" exclaimed Momiji happily.  "A swimming pool in the house!!"

"This has never happened before!" said Tohru because she was still there.

"Hatori, why weren't you getting up every hour to dump out the water?" demanded Ayame.

All Hatori could do was stare at Ayame with a dumbfounded expression.

"Okay…someone has to go over there and get all the food for everyone so we can bring it up into the loft until the water just magically disappears." Shigure said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

"I'm not going to do it." Said Hatori.

"Who else COULD do it?!" yelled Ayame.

"You can." Hatori answered.  "Do I have to do everything around here?"

"And ruin these brand new pajamas?" Ayame said in the 'you should know better, Hatori' tone.  "What planet are YOU from?"

"I don't have any dry clothes." Hatori said.  "At all."

"I was GOING to suggest that you could borrow mine but not if you're going to be wading through two feet of water then forget it." Said Shigure as if Hatori was right then and there DEMANDING that Shigure lend him some clothes.

"I'm not going to be wading through two feet of water." Hatori said.

"Well then how else are we going to get all the food that seemed to have magically appeared on the counter when we weren't looking?" Ayame asked skeptically.

Hatori looked over at the counter and then back at Ayame and Shigure.  "That food didn't just magically appear out of nowhere when no one was looking." He explained.  "I went and got it.  Remember?"

"Oh right." Said Shigure.  "And you wrecked the car."

"Real mature, Hatori." Said Ayame, crossing his arms like a disappointed parent.

"Well, it's really too early for breakfast anyway." Said Hatori.  "Why don't we all just go upstairs into the loft and play a board game or something and maybe by the time we're done, all this water will be gone."

"But it's still raining." Ayame said, pointing to the window.  "There's only going to be MORE water."

Once again, Hatori didn't answer if he didn't want to.  And he didn't.

"Fine, let's go upstairs then." Said Ayame as if he were the mature and responsible one.  Then they started going up the stairs only to remember a second later that Tohru and Momiji were there too!  Luckily, they were being helpfully silent the whole time and they LIKED the idea of playing some board games so they quickly forgot about the food and went upstairs as well.

"It's too bad most of the kids are asleep." Said Shigure.

"EVERYBODY WAKE UP!!!" screamed Ayame as he turned on the light as bright as it would go and then flicked it on and off a bunch of time until people who used to be sleeping starting whining at Ayame.  But he didn't care because he had already found the board game that he wanted to play and was setting it up: TWISTER!!!  THE HOT SPOT!!!

"What foolish member of our cursed family thought that Twister was a good game to buy?" wondered Shigure as he looked on the back of the box to see people of both genders falling on top of each other.

"It was probably Ayame." Said Hatori.

"What?!" demanded Ayame.  "I like this game!  We're practically all guys here anyway and Tohru's the only one who will really cause any problems!"

"We can't just NOT let Tohru play." Said Hatori.

"I wanna play Twister!" whined Tohru.

"We'll just be careful of her!" said Ayame.

"Okay, Ayame, you keep that in mind." Said Hatori, picking up the little spinner and sitting down on a bed.

"What?!" demanded Ayame.  "You're not playing?!"

Hatori raised an eyebrow.  "No…" he replied as if were obvious.  Which… it kinda was.  Just think… Hatori… Twister… it just doesn't work.

"Can I be the spinner?" asked Haru.

"No, Haru, you must play and be social." Hatori replied.  "Interact with everyone else once and a while."

If Haru was old enough to know the word 'hypocrite' then he would have said it right then and there.  But he didn't.  So he decided to play Twister with everyone else.

Then all the elder people wrote a 'L' on the smaller children's left hands and feet and an 'R' on their right hands and feet.  And Ayame, with only mean and malicious purposes in his heart, switched the R and the L for Yuki, but only on his hands so that his feet contradicted his hands.

 Finally…THE GAME COMMENCED!!!!

"Right hand red." Said Hatori since that's the most popular Twister move.

And everyone put their right hands on a red circle.

"Kyo, I said right hand red." Said Hatori when he noticed that Kyo was not putting his right hand on a red circle.  In fact, he wasn't putting ANY appendage on ANY colored circle!

"I don't wanna play!" said Kyo as he stood up and pulled himself up onto the closest bed to him and curled up in a comfortable pink sleeping bag and fell asleep.

Hatori paused for a minute.  "That was so abrupt." Said Hatori.  "It just happened right then and there.  And I didn't do anything about it.  But that's okay since it's not my bed."

"Can you read the next move?" asked Yuki impatiently.  "My right hand is getting tired!"

"That's your left hand, Yuki." Said Ayame.

"It's got an 'R' on it!" said Yuki, showing the R to Ayame.

"I recognize that fancy cursive R!" said Shigure almost as if he was in extreme awe.  "Ayame, why did you change the symbols on Yuki's hands?"

"To be MEAN!" said Ayame.  He WOULD have rubbed his hands together diabolically right then and there if not for the fact that he had his right hand on red at the moment.

"Whatever." Said Hatori.  "Yuki, it's fine.  All right…" And then he spun the spinner.  YAY!!  "Left foot blue."

And everyone put their left foot on the blue circle.

EXCEPT FOR SHIGURE!!!

"Shigure, that's the yellow circle." Said Hatori.

"Fine, get all technical." Said Shigure, switching his foot to the green circle.

"That's green." Hatori explained.  "We're looking for blue."

"I don't wanna play anymore!" said Shigure, standing up and stomping over to where Hatori was sitting as if he were some kind of little kid throwing a temper tantrum.

"Well, that was very abrupt too and I'm not going to do anything about that either." Hatori said as he went to spin again.

"But don't you want to know why I don't want to play anymore?" Shigure asked since he obviously wanted to tell people.

"Sure, if you want to explain." Hatori replied.

"As you most likely know, dogs are colorblind and…considering the fact that I turn into a dog…I…I am ALSO colorblind!" Shigure said, striking a pose of despair and acting as though he were in a really bad play.  "Just so you know that I'm not an idiot who doesn't know his colors."

"That's something I never knew about you." Said Hatori.  "You being colorblind, I mean."

"All right, now you have to tell me a secret about you too so we'll be even." Shigure declared.

"Oh?" Hatori said.

"Yup." Shigure said with a nod.

"HELLO?!" screamed all the people playing Twister.

"Left hand green." Hatori said.

"You still have to tell me a secret." Shigure continued.

"You told me that you were colorblind willingly." Hatori said.

"And if you were my TRUE friend then you would tell me a secret that you normally would have kept from me!" Shigure said.

"Right foot blue."

"Now you're just avoiding the question!!" Shigure yelled, throwing a temper tantrum.

"Fine." Said Hatori.  "But you have to promise not to freak out."

"I promise!" said Shigure, doing the boy scouts hand thing.

"Well…" Hatori said, lowering his voice if that was really possible.  "Don't tell anyone, but I turn into a seahorse when I am hugged by someone of the opposite gender."

The room fell silent.

Ayame cleared his throat.

"Right hand yellow."

"I ALREADY KNEW THAT!!!" Shigure yelled.

"Really?" Hatori asked as if he were actually surprised.  "I guess the cat's out of the bag now."

"Tell me a REAL secret about you!" Shigure commanded.  "One that I couldn't possibly know!"

"All right." Hatori said finally.  "I've erased your memory once."

"What?!" yelled Shigure.  "WHY?!"

"I can't tell you." Hatori replied.

"Why not?!"

"That would defeat the whole purpose of erasing your memory in the first place now wouldn't it?"

"Hey Hatori, if you're not going to spin the board then give it to us or something!" yelled a crazy Twister playing person.

"Sorry." Said Hatori.  "Left hand yellow."

"I'M GONNA FALL!!!" Tohru was suddenly screeching as she leaned over Haru to get her hand on the yellow circle.  Of course, since Haru has such quick reflexes, he was unable to move out of the way in time so Tohru fell on top of him!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!  Yes, he DID turn into a cow.  But it wasn't a cow.  It was a little baby calf!  DAW!!!

Of course, Little Baby Calf Haru is a little bigger than Just Haru so since Tohru was on top of him, she got pushed upwards into Ayame who was leaning over the two of them.  AND HE TURNED INTO A SNAKE!!!  Don't worry, he was the same size as he usually is.

Just calm down.  It's okay.

"That was a disaster, just as I had originally predicted." Said Hatori as he pulled the Twister mat out from underneath them all and then began to fold it up.

"How was that a disaster at all?!" demanded Kagura.  She hasn't said anything ALL MORNING.

"How many reasons do you want?" Hatori asked.

"I don't know." Kagura replied.  "As many as you're willing to give."

"Fine.  Zero." Hatori said cleverly as he put the mat and the board back in the box.

"No!" yelled Kagura.  "Give me ten reasons!"

"I'll give you as much as I can think of off the top of my head." Hatori compromised.  "First of all, Kyo runs off to hide before the game even starts.  Ayame switched the L and the R on Yuki's hands.  Shigure can't play because he's colorblind.  And not to mention what just happened about ten seconds ago involving Ayame, Tohru and Haru."

"I am a snake." Said Ayame.

"And you still haven't told me why you erased my memory!!" whined Shigure.

"Kyo's hiding somewhere?!" Kagura said, looking around as if she had just noticed that Kyo hadn't been playing with them the entire time.

"I'm still here." Said Momiji since he WAS still here.

Then Hatori opened up the little drawer in the corner and put the Twister board back in.  He pulled out Dream Phone and put it on the floor.  "Here, play with this." He said.  "It doesn't matter if you know how to play or not.  Just entertain yourself with the little phone."

"ALL RIGHT!!!" cheered Tohru, Kagura and Momiji.

"I don't wanna do that!!" complained Yuki.

"Too bad." Said Hatori, pushing Yuki over to the little circle where the other three had already started their game.  Yuki whined for about a second but then realized how much fun it was and decided to play along.

"I don't feel like playing." Said Haru who was still a cow.

"Well, you can't anyway." Said Shigure.  "Pressing buttons on a telephone would prove to be most difficult for someone with no fingers."

"Whatever." Said Haru.

"I am a snake." Said Ayame.

"We heard you the first time." Said Shigure.

"I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of my current situation so that I am not to be stepped on or swung around or anything that would be easy to do to someone of my present condition." Ayame explained.

"And Dale's Kyo, Spencer is Kyo, Alan is Kyo…" Kagura listed as she colored on each of the 'boy cards' with an orange marker.

"But then they'll ALL be Kyo!" Tohru pointed out.

"Exactly!" said Kagura.  "That way, no matter what, I'll end up with him!"

"But what if I win and not you?" said Momiji.  "Then I'LL get Kyo!"

"Wait…" said Yuki.  "If I win, I'm with KYO?!" 

"I guess so." Said Tohru.

"But you can give him to me." Said Kagura.  "Okay?"

"OKAY!!" said everyone including Kagura.

"Please tell me!" Shigure begged.  "I'll be your slave!  I'll do your homework!"

"No." said Hatori as he did something manly.  It doesn't matter what he's doing, you can envision whatever manly activity you want Hatori to be doing whether it be lifting weights, rubbing oil on his muscles or something else that he'd NEVER be doing but you can pretend he is for fun!!  YAY!!  "I'm trying to get into a good college and having you do my homework would only jeopardize those chances."

"Come on, Hatori, I'm smart!" Shigure whined.  "It's not like I'm Ayame or anything!"

"Hey!" Ayame the Snake said as he wrapped around Shigure's head just because he could.  I mean, if I were a snake, that's what I'd be doing!!

"Still…" said Hatori.  "I erased your memory for a reason and it would only cause you pain and suffering if I were to remind you of what it was."

"That's so sweet, Hatori!" said Shigure.  "But…still tell me!"

"Never." Said Hatori.

"PLEASE?!" pleaded Shigure some more.

"Shouldn't you be watching the kids?" Hatori asked, changing the subject.

"YOU'RE the one just sitting here being manly!" Shigure yelled.

"You're the one sitting here trying to get me to tell you why I erased your memory." Hatori reminded him.

"Ayame, do you know why Hatori erased my memory?" Shigure asked, looking up with his eyes since Ayame was still there.

"Yes." Said Ayame.

"TELL ME!!!" demanded Shigure.

"I'm sworn to secrecy." Ayame said.

"THIS ISN'T FAIR!!!" whined Shigure.

"It's not THAT big of a deal!" said Ayame.

"Don't listen to Ayame, he doesn't know a thing." Said Hatori.  "I erased his memory about this event too."

"WHAT?!" yelled Ayame.  "HOW DARE YOU!!"

"So it's something that concerns BOTH of us?!" Shigure said happily, discovering a new clue.

"It concerns all three of us." Hatori answered vaguly.

"NOW WE BOTH MUST KNOW!!!" screamed Ayame and Shigure.

"Look, I'm sorry I brought it up, okay?" said Hatori as gestured for them to run off.  They were about to yell at him some more when Haru came over, still being a cow.

"I'm bored." He said.  "I don't feel like playing Dream Phone."

"What do you feel like doing then?" asked Hatori.

"Well, I don't really want to be a cow anymore." Haru confessed as if that were wrong of him and he should just LOVE being a cow.

"All you can do about that is wait." Hatori explained.

"I don't want to be a snake anymore." Ayame said as if Hatori didn't just respond to that statement except it applied to a cow instead of a snake.  But you already knew that.  At least…you SHOULD know that.

"Do you think the water downstairs is magically gone yet?" Shigure wondered, looking over the edge of the loft.

"Shigure, the water isn't just going to disappear." Hatori sighed, shaking his head.

"I'm still bored." Haru said more loudly.

"What do you USUALLY do when you're bored?" questioned Hatori.

"I'm always bored." Haru replied.

"Then just do what you always do." Hatori said.

"Nothing?" Haru asked.

"Yes." Said Hatori.  Haru shrugged and decided that he would do nothing.

"So anyway, Hatori…" started Ayame.

"Drop the subject right now." Hatori said as he took his manly activity to the other side of the room.  Of course, Shigure and Ayame just followed right after him.  "Leave me alone." Said Hatori.

"Not until you tell us why you erased our memories!" said Shigure and Ayame at the exact same time.

"If I tell you, I'll just have to erase your memories again." Hatori said, looking annoyed.

"We don't want YOU to live with the pain all by yourself!" said Ayame.

"It's not painful for me." Said Hatori.  "Only you two."

"ARGH!!!" yelled Ayame and Shigure as they ran in circles while screaming like fools.  Of course, Ayame SLITHERED in circles.

"SHUT UP!!!" yelled Kyo as he sat up in his bed.

"YEAH!!!" screamed all the other kids.

"You'd better listen to them." Said Hatori.

"Why should we?" demanded Shigure.

"Because." Said Hatori.  They waited for him to continue but he didn't want to.  So he didn't.

"I hate it when you do that!" yelled Shigure.  "I talk to you or say something and you just stare at me as if I didn't ask anything!  Why do you DO that?!"

Hatori decided that that wasn't worthy of his answer either.

"STOP IT!!!" commanded Shigure.

It was at around that exact moment that Kagura decided that she wanted Kyo to join her in Dream Phone!  So she ran over to him and since he was just a little man, she easily pulled him out of bed and over to the Dream Phone board while he whined like a sissy.

"It can be your turn." Said Kagura as she handed the phone to Kyo.

"IT'S MY TURN!!!" Yuki yelled as he tore the phone out of Kyo's hand and picked up a 'Boy Card' which was actually now a 'Kyo Card' considering they were all decorated to look like Kyo with his name and everything!!  "I'm calling Kyo!"

"Surprise, surprise!" said Momiji.

"I know who it is!  But I'm not telling!  HA!!  HA!!" said Dale, AKA Kyo on the telephone.

"GRR!!!" growled Yuki, slamming the phone down on the floor.  "That's the third time I've called the Kyo that laughs at me!"

"Why are they all named Kyo?" Kyo asked, looking through the deck.

"You're not allowed to look at the deck!!!" screeched Momiji, Tohru, Kagura and Yuki as they lunged forward to snatch them from Kyo but only succeeded with bumping heads with each other since they were all going for the same time.  They all broke into tears and cried their heads off until Hatori, Shigure and Ayame came over to see what happened.

"I deduct that since Kyo is the only one who is not crying and because he's the cat, this must be his fault!" Ayame declared.

"And they were playing so nicely before he came over." Shigure said with a nod.

"And he's the cat." Ayame reminded him.

"Shut up you two." Said Hatori.  "Then he'll start crying and then we'll have five crying children."

"Well he deserved it because he made them cry." Said Shigure.

"Since when are you two so malicious?" asked Hatori.

"Since you won't tell us why you erased our memories!" Ayame yelled.

"So you take it out on Kyo?" Hatori said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well…you know…" said Shigure, leaning over to Hatori and lowering his voice to a whisper.  "He's the cat.  He has no feelings."

"I do too!" Kyo whined.  "I'm leaving!!"  And then he stomped off and started making his way down the ladder.

"Kyo, there's water down there." Said Hatori.

There was a short pause.

"Hey…there's water down here." Came Kyo's pathetic voice from the first floor.

"Speaking of water, I am so hungry that I think I might very well just explode." Said Haru.

Everyone slowly turned their heads and looked and Haru who was just being a cow over in the corner.

"Unfortunately, the house is flooded at the moment." Said Hatori.

"So?" said Haru.

"And all the food is downstairs."

"Then go get it."

"But it's two feet of water, probably more."

"It's only water, right?"

"Right…"

"So what's the problem?"

"Haru, stop getting the best of Hatori!" said Shigure dramatically.

"He wasn't getting the best of me." Said Hatori.

"You can tell yourself that." Said Shigure, shaking his head as he pat Hatori on the shoulder.

"He wasn't." Hatori insisted.

"Sure, sure." Said Shigure.

Hatori decided to disregard Shigure.  He didn't really care if Haru got the best of him, or if Shigure THOUGHT that Haru got the best of him because let's face it, Haru did NOT get the best of him.  Or did he?  Did Hatori now have to erase EVERYONE'S memory just in case they thought that he couldn't argue against a little kid?!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Of course, he accidentally did that scream out loud so now everyone was staring at him.  Quickly, he cleared his throat and then walked off to the corner and stared at the wall in vain hope that everyone would just forget on their own.

"Okay…" said Shigure.  "I think we should all just go OUT to breakfast!!"

"How are we going to do that?" asked Ayame.  "Hatori destroyed the car."

"In order to go outside, we have to go downstairs and on the way to the door is the counter table and on the counter table is the food so if we're going to go downstairs, we might as well just get the food." Said Hatori from his secluded corner.

"Aww…" whined everyone.

"I will get it!" said Shigure, pointing his finger up in the air as he frolicked down the ladder and JUST missed stepping on Kyo who was just sitting on the ladder whining about how there was water everywhere.

Shigure then proceeded to wade through the water over to the counter.  He picked up all the food and then started walking over to the ladder.  On his way up, he looked as though he intentionally stepped on Kyo and then went tumbling into the water, getting EVERYTHING WET AND HORRIBLE!!!

"You stepped on me!" Kyo whined.

"Kyo, look what you did!" Shigure said, slapping his cheeks.  "Now we don't have ANY FOOD!!  Now we HAVE to go out to eat!"

"Shigure, that wasn't free you know." Said Hatori.

"Hey, tell Kyo, not me!" said Shigure, looking offended.

"I'm so sorry!" Kyo said, bursting into tears.

"Fine." Said Hatori.  "We'll go out."

"We'd better hurry or else Haru will explode!" said Shigure with horseshoe eyes as he vaulted over Kyo and sprinted up the ladder to go and change out of his pajamas.

JUST THEN, AYAME TURNED BACK INTO A PERSON!!!!!!  AH HA HA HA HA!!

"YAY!!" cheered Ayame.

"EEK!!" screamed Tohru and Kagura.

"Put some clothes on." Said Hatori as he yanked a bed sheet of the bed and whipped it out in front of Ayame.

"When am I gonna turn back?" Haru asked.

"I don't know." Said everyone at the same time.

"That's not fair." Said Haru.  "I turned into a cow about an hour before Ayame turned into a snake."

"Haru, there was probably a void of less than a second." Said Ayame as he clothed himself.

Just then, Kyo came up the ladder.  "I'm sorry I got all the food wet!" he said.  "But I don't want to go out to eat!  I don't want to go in the rain and get wet or walk or do anything else!"

"Too bad, now get dressed." Said Shigure.

Kyo sniffled and whimpered a little bit and Kagura helped him pick out something to wear before going off to get dressed herself.  Eventually, everyone was dressed and ready to go…except for Haru who was still a cow.  They tried to wait for him to turn back but Haru was the one complaining about being hungry considering cows have…what?  Nine stomachs?  Well, I don't know the exact number and I don't think Haru has nine stomachs.

Actually, when you think about it, do you think that when they turn into animals that they get their weird body abnormalities?  Such as having nine stomachs?  Or snakes being able to dislocate their jaws?  Do you think Ayame can do that when he's a snake?  Do you think he'd WANT to even if he could?!  NOW I'M CURIOUS!!!

But back to the task at hand…writing…

What?  We're done with the chapter anyway?  Well, you'll just have to wait until the next chapter to see the task at hand returned to.


	6. Sweat Pancakes and Black YUKI!

So, now it's the next chapter.

"Is everybody ready to go?!" said Shigure as he bounced up and down like a fool.

"We passed a restaurant on the way to the store yesterday." Hatori said.  "It's actually very close.  We just have to walk in the rain for about a half a mile at the most."

"Oh is THAT all?" said no one in particular.  You can have it be your favorite character.  Unless your favorite character is Ritsu, Hiro, Kisa or anyone else who isn't there.  It can't be Hatori either because Hatori would NEVER go and dis himself.  Especially a second after he just said something.

So they all went down the ladder and started going through the water and were just about to leave when they turned around to see Kyo still sitting on the ladder.

"Come on." Said Hatori.

"No." said Kyo, scoffing.

"Don't worry, Kyo, you can touch the ground!" said Tohru.

"I don't care." Said Kyo.

"Fine, I'll carry you." Sighed Hatori as he went back over to Kyo and slung him over his shoulder.  Then he went back over to the door and they all opened it, TOGETHER, it was a joint effort, and a lot of the water came flowing out of the house and they wondered why they hadn't thought of that in the first place.

"Wait, it's raining!" complained Kyo.

"Obviously." Said Hatori.  "That's why it's flooded in the house."

"And that's why you're so annoying right now!" said Shigure.

"Well, you're annoying 95 million percent of the time." Said Ayame.  "But you're just cranky annoying as opposed to being loud, bratty annoying."

They started walking outside.

"But aren't there any umbrellas?!" Kyo yelled suddenly.

"No." said Hatori.  They continued walking some more.

"I'm getting wet." Kyo whined.

"THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S RAINING!!!!" HOLL-ered Ayame.

"I don't like the rain!" Kyo cried.

"Oh geez, Hatori don't carry him if he's CRYING!" said Shigure.

"Why?" asked Hatori.

"He doesn't deserve it!" said Shigure.  "And that's what he wants!  You're not supposed to give a kid what he wants when he starts crying."

"Well remind me not to be nice to you when you're in a bad mood." Said Hatori.

"Kyo's ALWAYS in a bad mood!" Shigure argued.

"You know what I mean." Said Hatori, shaking his head.

"I'm tired." Said Momiji.

"Oh and I just remembered that we left Akito at home too." Said Ayame, slapping his fist into his palm.

Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and stared at Ayame.

"Oh wait, here he is!" said Ayame as he turned around to see Akito lying face down in the mud.  "He was following us the whole time!"

"Well carry him." Said Hatori.

"But he's all dirty!" exclaimed Ayame in a disgusted tone.

"He's going to get clean in about five seconds." Said Hatori.  "As long as you take him out of the mud."

"But if I take him out of the mud then I'LL get dirty!" said Ayame.

"But you'll clean off in five seconds too." Hatori pointed.

"Oh, my hair's getting ruined, I think I'll put on my rain bonnet!" said Ayame as he tied a flowery decorated rain bonnet and tied it around his head.

"Don't change the subject and pick up Akito before he suffocates." Said Hatori.

"Oh FINE." Said Ayame.  "But I don't see why it has to be ME."  And then he picked Akito up off the ground.

"I'm tired." Said Momiji again because everyone ignored him the first time around.

"How come you're carrying Kyo and not me?!" demanded Yuki.

"I'll carry Kyo so you can carry Yuki!" Kagura offered.

"YAY!!" cheered Tohru.  "We're going out to eat!  I'm so happy!"

"How much further do we have to go?" asked Shigure.

"My clothes are getting dirty!" exclaimed Ayame.

"At least you have clothes." Said Haru.  Everyone then took the opportunity to look at Haru who had turned back to normal and he was IN HIS BIRTHDAY SUIT!

"EEEEK!!!" screamed Kagura and Tohru since they do that every time.

"So, Haru, here are your choices." Said Hatori.  "You can either put on your clothes now and be wet while we're at the restaurant like me, or you can walk the rest of the way to the restaurant naked and then put your clothes on when we get to the restaurant."

After a moment's contemplation, Haru finally said: "I'll walk to the restaurant naked."

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that." Said Hatori with a sigh.

"Well.  Sorry." Said Haru.

"Haru, put some clothes on!" said Kyo.  "It's disturbing!"

"Why?" asked Haru.

"Because!!" yelled Kyo.  "I don't want to see you naked!"

"Then don't look at me." Said Haru.

"You're right in front of me!!" Kyo yelled.

"Then move." Said Haru.

"I can't!" said Kyo as he squirmed around a little bit.

"Then close your eyes." Haru instructed.

"FINE!!!" yelled Kyo as he put his hands over his eyes.  It probably didn't disturb him as much as he was letting on, he just had to prove his point.

"There it is!" said Ayame suddenly, pointing to the restaurant in the distance.  It was one of those crazy places that serves breakfast all day long while also serving everything else.  (Knowing that, of course, is completely irrelevant because it's not like they're going out to breakfast at some insane time so they would have been served breakfast regardless!)

Then they all frolicked happily to the restaurant and while the waitress was IN THE MIDDLE OF WELCOMING THEM TO HER RESTAURANT, they ran right by her and went to the bathroom so they could change their clothes into something dry.

"Where's all the dry clothes?" Hatori questioned to everyone who was there.

"In the bag." Shigure answered.

"What bag?" Hatori asked.

"The bag YOU were supposed to bring!"

"Why should I have to be in charge of a bag of dry clothes when I don't even have any?"

"I don't know!  YOU'RE the only sensibly mature one!"

"Well…I brought dry clothes." Said Ayame, whipping out an entire outfit from behind his back that was on a clothes hanger with the little plastic layer over it as if he had just gotten it from the dry cleaner's.

"So am I just going to stay naked?" Haru asked as if it didn't REALLY bother him.

"No." said Hatori as he took of his OWN soaking wet jacket and draped it over Haru.  Considering their humungous size difference, it was as if Haru was wearing…A DRESS THAT LOOKED A LOT LIKE A REALLY BIG COAT!!!

"But now I'm wet." Complained Haru.

"We all are." Said Momiji.

"Not Ayame." Shigure pointed out.

"Not me!" said Ayame proudly.

Then there was a knock at the door.  They opened it to see Tohru and Kagura standing there.

"Were we supposed to be doing anything in the bathroom?" Kagura asked.

"No, let's just go sit down." Said Hatori as everyone went over to the waitress who was still standing there like a fool.

"I'm glad you've finally decided to allow me to welcome to into my restaurant!!" yelled the waitress whose name was Macramé.

"Um…sorry." Said everyone was they hung their heads low.

"It's okay." Said Macramé.  "Welcome to Macramé and Spanky's Breakfast Fun Palace!!  Would you like the smoking section or the non-smoking section?"

"Hm…" started Hatori but then Ayame cut in.

"We will NOT be poisoning so many young lungs with putrid smoke!" he declared.  "We shall sit in the non-smoking section!"

Hatori and Shigure, being the smokers they are, were sad because they had been deprived of their precious life-shortening sticks for a few days now but that's okay because they shouldn't be smoking in the first place!  They were so busy fighting back their horrible addictions that they didn't have time to ponder about Ayame's sudden noble turn.  Perhaps he was simply fighting for his OWN lungs but just wanted to look COOL or something.  That crazy Ayame!

Macramé nodded and grabbed a whole stack of menus and ran off like a fool and they all followed her.  They only watched her push all the tables together herself and didn't offer their services because they didn't feel like helping her.  Then they all sat down at the table and we'll show you how they were all sitting just because…we rule.

Shigure   **T**       Ayame

Akito       **A**      Hatori

Tohru       **B**      Yuki

Haru           **L**      Kagura

Momiji     **E**      Kyo

SURAH!!!

"Should I just order everybody pancakes?" started Hatori.

"WE HATE PANCAKES!!!!" everyone screamed at the very same time.  Unfortunately, they screamed so loudly that the building exploded but then it reformed a second later, thankfully.

"Okay fine…" said Hatori a bit tentatively as he picked up his menu and hid behind it.

"I want Kangaroo Flapjacks." Said Yuki.

"Those are pancakes." Shigure pointed out.

"No." said Yuki.  "They're Kangaroo Flapjacks."

"I want Kangaroo Flapjacks too!!" said Tohru.

"What do you want, Kyo?" Kagura asked as she shared her menu with Kyo.  Yes, she was obviously taking FULL advantage of the fact that it was raining but WHY NOT?!  Hey, if I were her then I would do it too!

"I'm not hungry!" Kyo said, swatting her menu away.

"Sure you are!" said Kagura with horseshoe eyes as she brought the menu RIGHT back!  Of course, Kyo had used up all his energy on the previous swat so he couldn't very well do it AGAIN, so he figured that he might as well look at the menu since he was lying about not being hungry.  "Well, if you don't tell me what you want then I'll just order something FOR you!"

"Fine!" said Kyo.

"Well…how about…" started Kagura, looking at all the pictures.  "Oh!  Let's get these with the strawberries on them!  It comes with hash browns!!"

"What are you looking at?" Hatori asked, looking the menu up and down.

"The one in the upper right hand corner." Said Kagura.

Hatori looked at the picture.  "Kagura, those are pancakes that come with strawberries."

"And hash browns!!" Kagura yelled.

"Okay…" said Hatori as he whipped out a piece of paper and started writing down all the orders as not to make another fatal mistake like last time.  "Okay, Tohru, Yuki, Kyo, Kagura and I are getting pancakes.  Anyone else?"

"Actually, I think I want pancakes too." Said Shigure.

"I guess I will too." Said Ayame with a sigh as if he were sacrificing himself for a good cause.

"Fine." Said Hatori, sounding ALMOST frustrated.  "Well…Haru, Momiji?  What do you two want?"

"I think…I want FOUR pancakes." Said Haru, putting his menu down.

"ME TOO!!!" cheered Momiji.  "But I want the butter and bacon to be arranged like a happy face!!"

"Haru, you don't need FOUR pancakes." Said Hatori.  "Neither do you, Momiji.  I'll just get you both one."

"That's not fair." Said Haru, slamming his fist down on the table.

But Hatori ignored him and wrote everyone's orders.  "I'll just get Akito a pancake too because I like pancakes and so should he." He declared.  At that exact moment, Macramé came over ready to take their order!!!

"What'll it be?" Macramé asked in her voice that sounded like she was smoking since she was born while chewing a piece of gum loudly with her mouth open.

"We'll all take pancakes." Hatori said.  "Only give those two at the end a single pancake and decorate it so it looks like a happy face.  Those two have strawberries and hash browns.  And those two have the Kangaroo Flapjacks.  He's just having a pancake…actually, just make it a piece of a pancake.  As for the three of us, just give us some sort of…pancake dish."

"WAIT!!!" screamed Ayame.  "I don't want just some sort of REGULAR pancake dish!!"

"Too bad." Hatori said.

"No, I must give my special request." Said Ayame.

"Then do it." Hatori said with a sigh.

"I must have the most perfectly cooked pancakes." Ayame said.  "And I only eat pancakes when they're perfectly round."

"Ayame…" started Hatori.

"As for my side of eggs, they must also be perfect." Ayame continued.  "If you accidentally cook mine NOT perfectly then give it to either Hatori or Shigure and start mine over again."

"That's enough…" Hatori interrupted.

"Oh and…" started Ayame but Hatori just killed him. But he didn't really, he just put a piece of tape on Ayame's mouth. Ayame just peeled it off a second later so then Hatori killed him but he didn't really, he just put some kind of metal bar with rivets over his mouth but it was fake so it was just a sticky piece of metal but the stickiness can't hold up metal so it just fell off so Hatori decided that if Ayame tried to say anything else he would just kill him but not really and then really find some way to shut him up.

"Well it's a good thing that Hatori didn't REALLY kill Ayame." Said Shigure.

"Would you stop reading what the narrator says?" Hatori asked.  "That didn't REALLY happen."

"I'll stop reading the narrator's lines if you answer my questions from now on AND tell me why you erased my memory!" Shigure compromised.

"No." said Hatori.

"And what'll you have for drinks?" asked Macramé.

"We'll just all have orange juice." Said Hatori.

"WE HATE ORANGE JUICE!!!!" screamed everyone as the building exploded again but reformed a second later.  It also caused Hatori to go partially deaf in one ear but luckily it was only temporary so he's fine now.

Bet you think Hatori's going to go around the table and everyone's going to remember that they actually DO like orange juice.  Well, no.  They all actually hate orange juice like they said.

Everyone got various juices and milks and sodas but is it really important to know who got what?

So Macramé wrote everything down and then she left.

They twiddled their fingers for a few minutes without anything to talk about.

"I'm gonna make a castle out of the jelly packets!!" Momiji said randomly as he grabbed all the jelly packets off the table and started making a castle. 

"Can I have one?" Haru asked as he took the peak of the castle before Momiji could even respond.  Then, in record-breaking time, he opened the jelly packed and began eating the jelly as if that was a meal.

"HEY!!" Momiji whined.  "That was my castle!!"

"Can I have another one?" Haru asked, taking another jelly packet.

"STOP IT!!!" Momiji cried as tears poured out like waterfalls.

"Kyo, stop making Momiji cry!!" yelled Ayame.

"Ayame, you don't have to scream." Said Hatori.  "We're sitting right here."

"I didn't do anything…" Kyo said sadly.

"I believe you." Said Kagura.  "Mostly because I'm watching Haru torture Momiji as we speak."

"Kyo…" said Ayame sternly.

"You have no idea what's going on over there." Said Hatori.  "It is literally the opposite side of the table."

"We didn't sit very strategically." Said Shigure.

"OH WELL!!" said Ayame with a very flamboyant chuckle.

Macramé came back right then, carrying ALL the plates of pancakes as well as all the drinks all by herself without ANY platters at all.  "We are very efficient here at Macramé and Spanky's Breakfast Fun Palace." She explained as she distributed all the stuff and didn't forget where a single meal went.

"Who is Spanky anyway?" asked Shigure.

"The cook." Said Macramé as she pulled out some exceptionally long straws from her apron.  "He wanted me to make sure you all got these nice long straws." Then she left.

Everyone shrugged it off and started eating and drinking.

"Why does my pancake have a happy face on it?" Haru asked about five minutes later.

"Oh, I guess I accidentally ordered to one like Momiji." Said Hatori who was eating very properly with a napkin in his lap while sitting up very straight and with the knife and fork in the upright position and all that other stuff.

"I can't eat it!" said Momiji.  "It's too happy!"

"Me neither." Said Haru.  "I didn't want my pancake to have a face."  It was just then that he noticed his parsley garnish.  He picked it up and put it in his mouth and then started working on chewing.

"I didn't want pancakes." Said Kyo.  "I hate pancakes."

"Then eat the hash browns!" said Kagura.

"There are onions in the hash browns!"

"Have you ever had hash browns that DIDN'T have onions in them?" asked Momiji as he fixed the bacon on his happy face pancake so that it looked happier.

"I've never had hash browns that DID have onions in them!" Kyo yelled.  "I hate onions!"  Kyo decided that these onion-infested hash browns offended him so he scrapped all of them into his napkin, tied the napkin up like a little hobo's bag and put it on the floor next to his chair.

So breakfast was more or less a disaster.  Momiji didn't eat his pancakes because he felt bad, Haru didn't eat his because they had a face on them.  Kyo simply ate the strawberries but left the pancakes while Kagura copied him even though she wanted the pancakes.  She wanted Kyo to think that they had the same interests even though Kyo probably didn't even notice!  Akito could no longer support the immense weight of his head so now he was face down in his pancakes.  Tohru simply wasn't hungry!  Shigure was too busy begging Hatori to tell him why he had erased his memory and Ayame couldn't eat a meal without brushed hair so he was making sure his hair was sufficiently brushed.  (Actually, Ayame just needed a reason why he wasn't eating because it can't be a disaster unless NO ONE eats!) Yuki had gotten up to go to the bathroom and stepped on Kyo's hash browns and decided right then and there that he would have none of that and that Kyo could simply not get away with soiling his shoes like that!  

Yes, I know that Kyo's the one who usually picks the fights but that's only to the untrained eye.  Yuki's not all nice like he seems, he's really got an evil side!  The Soumas like to call his evil side, BLACK YUKI!!!!  

Just kidding.  Yuki's evil side is not distinguishable enough from his regular personality to be a schizophrenic like Haru and Yuki is rarely ever mean.  Ninety-nine times out of one hundred Kyo will be the one who picks the fight but this particular instance happens to be that ONE time where YUKI picks it!

"You put that there so I would step on it!" Yuki HOLL-ered as he pointed to Kyo.  Kyo looked down at Yuki's feet and then back up at Yuki.  He just didn't feel like doing his favorite thing in the world (which is fighting with Yuki) right now.  DAMN THAT RAIN!!!

"No I didn't!" he yelled.  "Now go away!"

"YEAH!!" yelled Kagura as she hugged Kyo into her small child-sized bosom.

Yuki was just about to retaliate when suddenly, Hatori stood up.

"Time to go." He announced as he picked up Akito.

"You mean we walked all the way here and we're leaving already?" Shigure whined.

"Yes." Said Hatori.  "Let's go.  Now."

Suddenly, a man wearing a chef's hat came over.

"Hi, I'm Spanky!  Did you enjoy my pancakes?" the man asked.  This man had a very noticeable lisp.  Then Spanky noticed the numerous untouched plates of pancakes.  "You insult me!"

"The parsley was good." said Haru.

"I poured my sweat into those pancakes and you just act as though it's nothing!" Spanky cried. 

"I'm very sorry." Said Hatori.  "I shouldn't have ordered them in the first place."

"Do you know how HARD it is to sweat for so many pancakes?!" Spanky continued.

"You LITERALLY sweat into the pancakes?!" Shigure screamed.

"Shigure, it's just a figure of speech." Said Hatori.

"Yes, yes I did!" Spanky announced.

"Wait…you did?" Hatori asked.  Then he paused as he thought about the pancakes he had just consumed.  "Why would you do that?"

"I like to put a little of myself into my work." Said Spanky.  "Sometimes it's my sweat, other times I put in some hair or…"

"That's enough." Said Hatori as he looked as though he would vomit right then and there.  He would have liked to pull out a cigarette to ease his pain and suffering but then he would set a bad example for the children and would never be able to tell them the harmful effects of smoking.  IT'S BAD!!!

"Well, good thing I was too busy brushing my hair to eat so I did not anything grotesque that could potentially be harmful to my perfect complexion." Said Ayame.

"GROTESQUE?!" screamed Spanky. "GET OUT OF SPANKY'S RESTAURANT!"

"Spanky, it's my restaurant too!" whined Macramé.

"But they did not insult YOU." Said Spanky.

"And the service was bad too." Said Ayame just because he felt that if he was being kicked out ANYWAY, he might as well go out with a SHA BANG!!

"GASP!!!" screamed Spanky and Macramé.  "NOW PAY US AND LEAVE!!!"

"Pay you?" Shigure said with a raised eyebrow.  "Your pancakes were poisonous and disgusting."

"Well, HE ate them." Said Spanky, pointing to Hatori.

"That was BEFORE I found out that you poured your sweat into them, as you phrased it." Hatori replied.

"Fine then we're going to have to get the police involved!" said Spanky.

"We're ALL minors." Said Shigure.

"DARN!!!" said Macramé and Spanky since it didn't occur to them that even minors could get in trouble with the police and get community service and a fine.  So they smoked at the ears so much that it was as if Shigure and Hatori's wishes were granted and they were in the smoking section but then they everyone was punted out of the restaurant faster than you can say 'Gomamon Digivolves to Ikkakumon!!'

"AND WE'RE NEVER COMING BACK!!!!" HOLL-ered Shigure but you couldn't hear him over the crash of thunder.

"It's still raining…" complained Kyo but suddenly, all the skies brightened up and it stopped raining and the flowers bloomed and birds were singing and then a BEAUTIFUL double rainbow formed and they followed it to the end and found a pot of gold!!  But not really.  But all that other stuff was true, just not the thing about the pot of gold.  You can pretend as though they followed it to the end and found nothing but there was absolutely no pot of gold included in this story.

"To think what we could have done with that pot of gold." Said Shigure, snapping his fingers.

"Shigure, I thought we had a deal that if I answered your questions from now on then you would not speak to the narrator or refer to the narrator's pointless rants." Hatori said.

"No, the other part of the deal was that you would tell me why you erased my memory too." Shigure said.

"It was not." Hatori replied.

"You don't tell me, I don't stop conversing with the narrator." Said Shigure as he crossed his arms.  

"You don't stop conversing with the narrator and I erase your memory so that you'll NEVER find out why I erased it in the first place." Threatened Hatori.

"It's not like you're going to anyway…" whined Shigure.

"I might if you comply with everything I say." Said Hatori.

"Is that a fact, Hatori?" asked Shigure.

"Can we please go home and not just stand here?" asked Kyo in a really whiny voice as he stood in between Hatori and Shigure with his arms folded while shivering since he was, after all, WET.  Hey, they ALL were!!  HAW HAW HAW!!!

"I guess that might be a good idea." Said Hatori.

"You can explain on the way home." Said Shigure as he rested his arm on Hatori's shoulder.

"Don't touch me." Said Hatori.

"Right!" said Shigure as he lifted his arm up.  "Now you HAVE to tell me!"

Hatori groaned and slapped his forehead.


	7. Hide 'n' Seek and Bacon!

Eventually, they all returned home and much to their surprise, all the water in the entire house had flowed out the door but it was still wet and stupid in the house!!  Also, since it had stopped raining, Kyo wasn't grumpy anymore.  He was just LOUD and ANNOYING.

"There's still the problem that Shigure dropped all our food in the water." Said Ayame, picking up a soggy box of cereal.

"We can still use the stuff that was in containers or plastic bags!" said Shigure as if he had planned it all along and picked up a loaf of bread in a bag as well as some peanut butter.

"So you're saying that we're going to live on peanut butter sandwiches?" Hatori said.

"We could always go out and get some more food but…" started Ayame as he suddenly looked despaired.  "The car…it's ruined."

"Will you two stop bringing that up?" Hatori sighed.  "I do ONE thing wrong and I'm branded for life." 

They searched through the pile of wet food to find things that could be saved.

"Actually, the only things here that are actually ruined are the hamburgers, the fish sticks and the cheese." Hatori observed.

"And this soggy box of cereal." Ayame pointed out since he was still holding it since it was his favorite box of cereal and now he was sad that he couldn't eat it because it was soggy.

"It's bacon!!" cheered Shigure suddenly as he picked up a package of bacon that was on the floor but now it isn't because he picked it up.  "You didn't tell me that you got bacon!!"

"I assumed you knew since you asked specifically for it." Said Hatori.

"If somebody had told me that we had bacon then we could have eaten HERE and not gone out to that CRAZY restaurant!!" Shigure said as he started bouncing up and down on his spot while chanting 'BACON BACON BACON!!!'

"I'm HUNGRY!!!" screamed all the kids since none of them really ate.

"Too bad." Said Hatori.  "Go off and do something to entertain yourselves."

"What'll we do?" whined YOUR favorite child.

"I don't know." Hatori replied.  "Be inventive.  Use your imaginations."

"Let's go play hide and seek!" said Tohru.  Since everyone loves Tohru and wants to please her, they all decided to play hide and seek with her and they all made Momiji be the counter because he's small, young and easy to push around.  Yes, I know Haru could potentially fall into that very same category but he's anything but easy to push around!  HAW HAW HAW!!!

Then they all ran off while Momiji counted.

"Um…shouldn't we make them some breakfast or something?" Shigure asked, caressing the bacon as if it were his firstborn child.  "Like some bacon?"

"Shigure, we already went out to eat." Said Hatori.

"But I think they're still hungry." Shigure said, inching closer and closer to Hatori as if getting closer to him would convince him.

"They forgot about it and went outside to play." Said Ayame, sitting down, crossing his legs in a feminine way and picked up his Vogue magazine.

"But the bacon will go BAD." Said Shigure.

"No it won't." said Hatori.

"But we should eat it anyway."

"We'll have it with lunch, is that all right?" Hatori compromised.

"But bacon is a BREAKFAST item!"

"Then we'll have it for breakfast tomorrow then."

"NO!!!" yelled Shigure, throwing a temper tantrum.

"Don't worry, lunch is only in a few hours." Said Hatori.  "I'm sure you can wait that long."

"Fine." Said Shigure, scoffing.  "But only because I'm mature."

"Right." Said Hatori.  "Why don't you go for a walk in the meantime?  When you get back, there will be a nice BLT sandwich for you."

"Oh good!" said Shigure.  "Just hold the sandwich, the L and the T."  And with that, he pushed the door open and went on his walk.

MEANWHILE!!!

"READY OR NOT HERE I COME!!!" screeched Momiji in his horrible dubbed voice but then it turned back a second later so don't worry.  He searched around for about five seconds and then found Kyo sitting up on the roof.  "I found you!!"

"You have to tag me!" Kyo called down from the roof.

"That's not fair!" whined Momiji.

"It's the RULE." Said Kyo, crossing his arms.

"Fine." Said Momiji.  "How'd you get up there?"

"Like I'm going to tell you!" laughed Kyo.

"Well I'm not leaving until you come down!" said Momiji.

"I can stay up here all day!" Kyo said with a feh.  Of course, Momiji didn't last more than thirty seconds before he got bored and went off to find someone else to tag.

"GOALS!!!" came Kagura's squeaky voice.  Momiji turned around to see that…KAGURA HAD GOTTEN TO THE GOAL BEFORE HE COULD TAG HER!!!  OH NO!!!  Even though all you old-school hide-and-go-seekers know that there is no goal or tagging in REAL hide and go seek.

"Aw man!" sniffed Momiji.  Even if he had found Kagura and had a head start, he probably wouldn't be able to catch her anyway considering the age and size difference.

"I can tell you where Yuki's hiding!" whispered Kagura.  "I saw him go into his hiding spot!  He's under the porch!!"

"Okay!" said Momiji, feeling evil as he tiptoed over to the porch and looked under it and saw Yuki immediately because his eyes glowed.  "FOUND YOU!!!"

"You have to tag me!" said Yuki.  "Come and get me!"

"I don't want to!" complained Momiji.  "It's dark and scary and there are spiders under there!"

"Then you might as well go away." Said Yuki.  "I can see Haru from here.  Go and tag him."

"Okay!" said Momiji knavishly as he skipped off and found Haru in record-breaking time since Haru wasn't exactly hiding.  He was just sitting on a rock looking very spaced out while still wearing Hatori's wet jacket whereas everyone else changed while no one was looking.

Momiji ran up and even though Haru was about ten feet in front of him, it took him about an hour, MAYBE MORE, to get over to him and finally tag him.  "I got you!" Momiji cheered, jumping up in the air and stopping to catch his breath.

After a few seconds, Haru turned his head and face Momiji as if he just noticed that he was there.  "What?" he said.

"Hide and go seek!" said Momiji.  "I tagged you!  Now you're 'It'!"

"Oh…" said Haru.  "I'm not playing."

"What?" Momiji said, looking hurt.  He sniffled a few times before bursting into tears.

Just then, Tohru came out of her hiding spot that was right behind a tree that was next to Haru just for convenience.  "You can tag me, Momiji!" she said.

"YAY!!" cheered Momiji as he tagged Tohru.  "TOHRU'S 'IT'!!!"

MEANWHILE!!!

Hatori and Ayame were both sitting inside reading their various reading things.  It was pretty silent.

"So…why DID you erase our memories?" asked Ayame suddenly.

"What?" Hatori asked, playing dumb.

"Don't play dumb!" yelled Ayame.

"I, Hatori, do not play dumb." said Hatori, not looking up from his book.

"PLEASE tell me!!" begged Ayame, throwing his magazine aside and getting down on his knees.  "I won't tell Shigure!!"

"No." said Hatori, turning himself so that he wasn't facing Ayame anymore.

"PLEASE!!!!" he continued plead, repositioning himself so he was in front of Hatori again.

Hatori sighed, put down his novel, faced Ayame properly and leaned over.

"Are you telling me?" Ayame asked excitedly.

But instead, Hatori just put his hand on Ayame's face and there was a flash of light and Ayame was thrown back onto the ground!!  AW!!!

After a moment's silence, Hatori gave a sigh of relief and picked his book back up, waiting for Ayame to regain consciousness.

MEANWHILE!!!

"GOT YOU!!!" shrieked Tohru as she jumped on top of Yuki in vain attempt to slow him down as he made his way closer to the goal.  You know what comes next, don't you?  If you don't then you are not a real fan of Fruits Basket and are just reading this story because you love US.  Which we would completely understand if that is true because we would do that too if we were you and not us.

So, if that's true, then Yuki turned into a rat because of his Zodiac Curse that effects certain members of the Souma family.

"HA HA HA!!" laughed Kyo from the roof.  "Stupid rat!!"

"That's not funny." Said Yuki.

"I'm so sorry!" said Tohru as she tried to collect up all of Yuki's clothes.

MEANWHILE!!!

We'll pretend as though a little while passed and Hatori decided to start on those BLTs.  He got up and buttered the pan and laid out the bacon all nicely and perfectly and was just about to turn on the stove when he suddenly realized that it didn't work!!  After a moment of being puzzled, he remembered that the power had gone out the night before.

He stood there for a minute and tried to contemplate his next plan of action.  He couldn't very well NOT make BLTs because he already promised Shigure that he would make them and Hatori Souma is a man of his word!!  So he decided that maybe it would be fun to have a cook out so he went into the basement to find the grill and a few spatulas and some coal and set up outside on the porch.

"Hatori, Kyo won't get off the roof!!" yelled Momiji.  "We can't tag him when he's up there and I've already been 'It' THREE TIMES and he hasn't been 'It' a single time and that's not fair!!"

"Life's not always fair, Momiji." Said Hatori.

"HA HA!!" laughed Kyo.

"What are you making?" asked Kagura.

"Um…bacon." Hatori replied as he poured some coals in the grill.

"On a grill?" asked Tohru.

"Yes." Said Hatori.  Just then, Ayame came outside looking rather dazed.

"Hatori!" he said.  "When did you wake up?"

Hatori didn't answer.  He only disregarded Ayame, hoping that maybe if he ignored him, he would go away.

"HELLO?!" Ayame yelled, slapping him on back.

"What is it?" Hatori asked.

"Um…" Ayame started as he looked around the yard to see all the small children standing there like fools.  "Where are we?"

"It doesn't matter." Said Hatori.

"What are you doing?" Ayame asked, looking at the grill and then at the perfect bacon strips that were on a plate next to them.  "Bacon doesn't go on a grill.  I thought you were smarter than that."

"The power went out."

"When?"

"Last night."

"I don't remember that…"

"That's okay." Hatori assured him as the coals heated up just right then and there.  They're SUPER COALS!!  Then he started laying out the strips on the grill and started making some bacon.  There was a span of about five minutes and everyone was still in awe that this was actually working.  Just to tell you, kids, this doesn't REALLY work and don't EVEN cook bacon on a grill unless you have a freak grill.

Suddenly, Shigure came running around the corner chanting 'BACON BACON BACON!!!'

For some reason, Tohru was REALLY happy to see Shigure so she jumped up and hugged him and he turned into a dog!!  AWK!!

Then he continued running as if that didn't even happen and went straight over to the grill.  "I smell bacon!!" he said, jumping up and down.  "What's in the grill?!  What's in the grill?!  I can't see!  Oh please, PLEASE give me what's in the grill!!  Yummy, chewy, crispy BACON!!!"

"Jesus tap dancing Christ!!" said Ayame.  "Calm down, Shigure!!"

"Um…here." Said Hatori giving Shigure a finished piece of bacon.

Shigure chewed the bacon very loudly and excitedly.  "IT'S BACON!!!" he cheered, doing a little doggy jig.

"Shigure, that wasn't part of the commercial." Said Ayame.  "The dog definitely did not do a little jig at the end."

"Are you sure?" said Shigure.  "It was Dog-O-Vision so there's no way you can ACTUALLY tell."

"You'd be able to see the Dog-O-Vision moving around as if it were doing a little jig." Said Ayame.

"Maybe it was while they were showing the product and you didn't actually SEE the dog OR the Dog-O-Vision." Said Shigure.  But then he paused.  "Wait…why are you cooking bacon on a grill?"

"Because the power's still out." Hatori replied.

"STILL?!?!" yelled Shigure.  "Haven't you DONE anything about it yet with your magical seahorse powers?!"

Hatori paused.  "Well, Shigure, I refuse to speak to you anymore while you're a dog." He said.  "I just can't take you seriously."

"I've carried on PLENTY of conversations with you while you were a seahorse the whole time!" Shigure argued.

"That's YOU." Said Hatori.

"Nu nu nu." Said Ayame.

"Is the bacon ready yet?" whined everyone at the same time, including Hatori.  HAW HAW HAW!!!  He didn't really.

"No." said Hatori as he tried to hide the fact that all the bacon was falling through the cracks into the coals and crisping up.  He hoped they didn't notice as he fished through the coals to get the bacon that was all crispy and black and burnt.

Just then, Shigure turned back!!  YAY!!  After all, his only purpose for being a dog was for that whole scene.

So Shigure went inside to put some clothes on.  And when he came out, Hatori was ALL done with the bacon!!!  SURAH!!!  Of course, Hatori declared that he would simply adore making the BLTS while no one was watching him and all by himself so he ran inside and gave himself all the bacon that didn't fall through the cracks while everyone waited patiently and innocently outside.

Only after going inside did he realize that they didn't have any tomatoes or lettuce and the bread was nowhere to be found!!  ATOR STYLE NO!!

So Hatori only came back outside with his plate of bacon and set it on the table.

"There." He said, grabbing three of the best pieces all for himself and then quickly walking off before everyone could realize his fiendish plan.

"Hatori, the way you make bacon sucks." Said Ayame, picking up a piece of bacon as it crumbled.

"MY EARS!!!!" screamed Momiji, throwing his hands over his ears and closing his eyes tightly.  Ayame noted that Momiji had at least one good piece of bacon and quickly dropped the burnt crumbs in front of him and swiped the good piece.  Then he stole Yuki's and didn't even bother trading, exchanging or tricking him…just because he could do that kind of stuff.

"HEY YOU JERK!!" yelled Yuki as he burst into tears as if bacon was really all that big of a deal.  It was Momiji-dub-voice style crying but it was real.

"Hey, I thought we were going to have BLTs." Said Kyo as he hopped down from the roof to see the remaining three pieces of bacon which were only three charred blocks.

"Are you gonna finish that?" Shigure asked, leaning over to Haru who was eating EVER so slowly.

"I WASN'T but since you asked me, I'm going to." Said Haru who had three good pieces because he was the first one there.  Yes.  Yes he WAS the first one there since he's so fast.  Okay, he was IN on Hatori's little plan.

"Is this really all we're going to have for lunch?" asked Kagura since she was stuck with bad pieces.

"I like them!" said Tohru, trying to be polite.

"HEY!!!" yelled Momiji.  "WHO TOOK MY BACON?!?!"

Everyone turned their heads away and started twiddling their fingers.  Momiji started Momiji-dub-voice crying too.

"I'm taking Akito's bacon." Said Shigure, leaning over and snatching the bacon from in front of Akito who was lying on the table like a lump.  "He doesn't want it.  He told me."

"Whatever." Said Hatori.

"Can we have something else too?!" whined Kyo.  "Like the stuff we bought at the store?!  Can I have that?!"

"Yeah…" said Hatori but all the children were running in the house in a cloud of dust and flying paper because they had remembered that they had gotten snacks at the store just for themselves unless someone else had gotten them for them.

"All right…I have leeks, miso, onions and cheese." Said Yuki as he started eating the cheese.  It was one of those bright yellow cartoon cheeses that are all 3D and triangle shaped with holes in them and everything.  Come on, you know what we mean.  If you don't, you need to get in touch with your inner child or just watch more Tom and Jerry cartoons.

"YUM!!" said Kagura as she started eating her junk food and getting more on her face than in her mouth even though she's nine.

"I'll just make myself a better sandwich." Said Kyo as he found the bread with no trouble but then went to find the can opener so he could open up the can of tuna fish.

"I love strawberries!" said Tohru as she started eating watermelons whole without chewing or cutting or spitting out the seeds or anything.  Just kidding, she was eating strawberries like a normal person.

"Why didn't I get something cool?" complained Momiji as he ate his celery but then realized that he liked it so he just continued to eat and not complain.

"What is the item you guys got me?" Haru asked as he searched through all the bags of food.

"I don't remember…" said Kagura with her mouth full.

"I bet it was that RIDICULOUS cheese that Yuki is eating!" said Kyo as he searched through the cabinets that would obviously not have a can opener in them but how's HE supposed to know that?!

"NO!!" yelled Yuki before Haru could respond.  "IT'S MINE!!!"

"Yeah, I picked that out especially for Yuki!" said Tohru as she shook her finger at Haru as if he had done anything.

"But it IS mine." Haru had already convinced himself.  "I asked for it.  I've been wanting cheese for a really long time."

"Oh right!" Kyo played along.  "I remember you telling me that you wanted some cheese and I picked that out for you!"

"I could have sworn that I picked it out for Yuki…" said Tohru.

"No." said Kyo.  "You must have just saw me holding it and thought that you picked it out."

"Oh…" said Tohru since she's a twit and really gullible.

"So it's mine." Said Haru as he walked up to Yuki and snatched the cheese from him.  Yuki wasn't about to let a little kid get the best of him!!!

"I'm the rat!" said Yuki.  "The cheese is mine!!"

"The cheese is mine or I'll turn into Black Haru." Haru threatened.

"You can't do that at will." Said Yuki.

"You wanna bet?" Haru said with a raised eyebrow.

"Fine!" said Yuki with a sniffle.  "I didn't want it anyway!  I'll just eat my leeks and onions and miso."

"You mean these?" said Kyo as he stuffed the leeks and onions and miso down the garbage disposal and turned it on.  "They offended me." He yelled over the loud chopping noises.

"MY FOOD!!" Yuki shrieked, slapping his cheeks.

"You can have a piece of my bread." Said Kyo.  "But just because I'm nice."

"That's so nice of you Kyo!" said Tohru as she turned into one of those super deformed people with horseshoe eyes and a crazy background with sparkles and other nauseating things like that.

"But I'm only giving you the end pieces because I don't like them." Said Kyo.  Tohru still smiled and giggled.  "And you'll have to pick them out of the trashcan too."

"That's not very nice!" Tohru said.  "But at least you're giving him something at all!"

"Yeah!" said Kyo.  "You should be thankful!"

"Shut up." Said Yuki.  "I don't need the bread that YOU threw away!  I'll just not eat!"

"You can have some of my strawberries." Said Tohru.  "As a matter of fact, take them all!  It's the LEAST I can do for all you've done for me!"

"Well…" said Yuki.  "Maybe I'll just have ONE." 

"YAY!" Tohru cheered.

So the kids sat around for a few minutes in silence except for the sound of their chewing (especially Haru).

"This vacation is so boring!" Kyo whined.  "And I can't even sit down cause everything wet and I'll get my butt wet!"

"Yeah." Said Haru as he tossed the crazy cartoon cheese behind him.  He didn't really like it anyway.

"Well…" said Kyo.  "I'm going to go exploring in the woods.  I don't care what the rest of you do."

"Can I come?!" begged Momiji.

"Only if you'll be my slave." Said Kyo.

"Okay!" Momiji agreed.  Kyo secretly thought that this would be very fun.  Actually, it was THAT secretly because he announced it.

"It'll be fun to have a slave!" Kyo announced.  "Does anyone else want to come and be my slave?"

Tohru felt bad for Kyo since no one wanted to be his slave so she volunteered to go as well.  

Yuki just didn't want anything to do with Kyo so even if Kyo weren't forcing him to be his slave, he wouldn't have gone.

Kagura just didn't want to be Kyo's slave.  She wanted HIM to be HER slave.

Haru just didn't feel like raising his hand. 

"LET'S GO!!!!" cheered Kyo as he kicked the door open and paraded off into the horrible, terrible night.  Just kidding.  It was morning and it was lovely outside.

"All right!" said Tohru excitedly as she grabbed Momiji's hand and ran outside after Kyo.

At that exact moment, the three elders came back into the house through the back door, since Kyo, Tohru and Momiji ran out the FRONT door.


	8. Akito Speaks and Convenient Store Bob So...

"We just realized that we should be watching you and not just standing out there like fools." Announced Shigure.

"Shigure, YOU may have been standing out there like a fool but I, for one, was standing outside in a very cool fashion." Said Ayame as he adjusted his collar.  Hatori just shook his head and wondered why he willingly spent all his free time with these two.

"I'm bored…" complained Kagura as she looked around and realized that her two coloring buddies and her love had left her.  Now she was stuck with two LITTLE kids!!  AND THEY WERE BOYS!!!  EWWW!!!  Oh and Akito was there too.

Well…Akito's a boy too but it's not like he counts as a person who's actually there anyway.

"How about we play a game that EVERYONE can play?!" suggested Ayame.  "Well, except for Yuki.  He doesn't have to play."

"THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!" yelled Yuki.

"Not Haru since he'd slow down the speed of the game." Ayame continued.

"Hey." Said Haru.

"And not Kagura because she can be destructive." Said Ayame.

"That's not true!!" said Kagura even though it was.

"And not Kyo because he's the cat." Ayame said.  He then paused as it was silent.  He looked around for Kyo and waited a few moments for him to complain or argue but nothing came.  "I SAID; And not Kyo because he's the cat!" repeated Ayame, a little louder.  "Meaning that he can't play simply because he's a feline!"

"Ayame, obviously Kyo is not in the room at the present time." Said Hatori, wanting to shut Ayame up as he continued reading his best selling novel.

"Where could he be then?!" demanded Shigure since he was enjoying the torturing of the younger kids as well.

"In the bathroom?" suggested Hatori, not even looking up from his book to check where Kyo was.

"Brilliant." Said Ayame.

"Just move on." Shigure said.

"Oh all right." Said Ayame.  "I can't very well make fun of Tohru so Momiji can't play either because he's a cry baby."

They paused again.

"Say…come to think of it, Tohru and Momiji aren't here either!" said Shigure.

"I would NOT slow down the game." Said Haru, looking offended.

"They can't ALL be in the bathroom!!" declared Ayame as he opened the bathroom door.  "NO ONE is in the bathroom!!"

"Hatori, where are they?!" whined Shigure.

"How should I know?" Hatori said with a shrug.  But then he stopped.  "Wait, did you just say that they're missing?"

"Um…maybe…" said Ayame slowly.

"All right, what did you do with them?" sighed Hatori, putting his best selling novel down.

"Nothing!" said Ayame.  "I came in here to mock them and all of a sudden, they weren't here!  You were with me the whole time!!"

"I was reading though." Hatori pointed out.

"Well THAT was immature!" said Shigure.  "You should have been watching us and the kids!"

"I shouldn't have to watch you two." Said Hatori.  "You're old enough to be able to take care of yourselves."

"I didn't mean that." Said Shigure.  "I meant that you should have been helping us watch the kids."

"Fine, fine." Said Hatori.  "We should just find out where they are and then go and get them.  And, since you guys are very mature, why don't YOU do all the work for once?"

"No problem!" said Shigure with a laugh.

"Let's ask around!" said Ayame, getting all excited.  "Haru, where are Kyo, Momiji and Tohru?"

"I am not slow." Said Haru.

"Kagura?" Shigure said, wondering why they even bothered with Haru in the first place.

"Yes?" said Kagura.

"Where are they?" asked Shigure.

"Who?" asked Kagura.

"Momiji, Tohru and Kyo." Shigure replied.

"Kyo's HERE?!" Kagura asked, looking around.  "I thought he left!!"

"Stop playing dumb!!" yelled Ayame.  "We know you know where they are!!"

"Ha ha ha!" laughed Kagura.

"That suspicious little laugh tells me that you DO know where they are." Said Shigure as he rubbed his chin.

Kagura shook her head.  "No.  I was just laughing because Ayame got frustrated so easily."

MEANWHILE!!!

"THE FROGS IN THE POND ARE CALLING…MOMIJI YES IT'S TRUE!!!" sang Momiji in his horrible dub voice.  If you were picturing him to be singing this song in Japanese, go back up to where it says MEANWHILE and picture it all over again only in English.  If you don't know what he sounds like in English, then think about a whiney adult woman with no acting skills and then you'll have Momiji's dub voice!  Of course, try and picture this whiney adult woman about nine years younger because Momiji is younger as well.

"ARGH!!" yelled Kyo.  "If I have to hear that song one more time, I'm going to get REALLY angry!"

"That was only the first time!" Tohru said with a smile.

"SO?!" Kyo yelled.  "I don't want to have to hear it again!!"

"Let's sing it again but you guys can echo!" said Momiji.  Kyo grabbed Momiji's shoulder and pulled him close.

"You're not being a very good slave!" Said Kyo in Momiji's ear even though he said it loud enough so that Tohru could hear.  "Slaves listen to their masters!"

"Well then let's not play slave and master anymore." Said Momiji.

"That was the whole reason you were coming!" Kyo pointed out.

"Well, I changed my mind." Said Momiji.

"You can't do that!" Kyo whined.

"Kyo's picking on me!" Momiji cried.

"I have an idea!" said Tohru, trying to break up confrontation.  Kyo and Momiji turned their heads to Tohru and waited.

"Well?" asked Kyo after about a minute of waiting.

"What's your idea?" asked Momiji.

"How about we stop fighting!" Tohru said as if that were the best idea in the whole wide world.

"Well…maybe for now." Said Kyo.  "But don't think it's because you convinced me or anything.  It's just because…um…I don't feel like fighting with stupid over there anymore."

"I'm so glad!" Tohru said with horseshoe eyes.

"Oh Tohru!" Momiji cheered.  "You SAVED me!"

Momiji lunged at Tohru and gave her a big rabbit-sized hug.  It was rabbit-sized because he couldn't very well give her a hug without turning into one so I suppose it's impossible to receive a Momiji-sized hug unless the person hugging you were EXACTLY the same size/height/weight/proportion as our friend Momiji.

"Great!" said Kyo as he threw his arms up in the air.  "This just figures!  Well, I'M not carrying him!  He can WALK!"

"I'll carry him!" Tohru suggested.  She would have carried him even if Kyo hadn't blatantly and loudly refused.

"So where are we going?" asked Momiji the Rabbit.

"No speaking while you're a rabbit!" Kyo yelled.  Then he cleared his throat.  "We are going on a journey!  It'll be a test of strength and wits to see who rises triumphant!  We must all work together or else we will never reach our goal!  The one who gets there first is the winner!!" Kyo was starting to get a little passionate about his little mission that he made up right then and there.  "The treasure is there for the taking and it will be ours!  And that damn rat won't get ANY of it!"

"MY EARS!" whined Momiji since his is so pure that swear words damage his ears no matter how minor they are.  Tohru's ears hurt too but she was too busy holding Momiji to caress her own ears.  Plus, she saw that Momiji was a rabbit and rabbits have HUGE ears to the pain that HE is going through but he ten times worse than the pain that she is going through and she should be grateful for not being cursed with the burden of turning into a rabbit when hugged by the opposite gender.  

Of course, in thinking about Momiji's sad life, Tohru's eyes began to water.

"Wait…why are you crying?" asked Kyo.  "This is going to be fun and we're going to be rich!"

"It's just that…" sniffed Tohru.  "It's just that…you guys are so strong…to be living like this…day in and day out…I hardly hear you complain ever and to just go on smiling each day as if nothing is wrong.  Acting as though everything is normal…"

"What are you talking about Tohru?" asked Momiji.

Since Kyo, no matter how brash and rude he may be, is a sucker when Tohru starts crying, he hit Momiji on the head and told him to shut-up.

This made Tohru laugh because 'Kyo was acting normal again' even though he was never really acting differently to begin with.  She finally found the strength to continue on Kyo's nonsensical perilous journey.

MEANWHILE!!!

"They're not in the loft!" called Ayame from atop the loft down to Hatori who was frantically searching the cabin for the elusive three missing children.

"They're not on the roof!" said Shigure as he came back inside because he was outside…looking on the roof.

"And they're not down here…" Hatori said as the three of them stopped and all rubbed their chins at the same time.  Then Yuki came inside.

"They're not in the back yard!" he said.

"And they're not in the front yard!" said Kagura as she ran back in the front door.

"And they're not in the bathroom." Said Haru as he shut the bathroom door behind him.

"Haru, we already established that." Said Hatori.

"I was just making sure in case you didn't see them." Haru replied.

"Well where could they be?" wondered Ayame.

And the six of them took that opportunity to ponder.  Of course, they weren't all necessarily pondering about the whereabouts of Kyo, Momiji and Tohru, mind you!  Yes, Hatori WAS but everyone else wasn't.  Yuki was thinking about his cheese and granola and other things that he would like to be eating right now but couldn't be because they were confiscated from him.  Kagura was thinking about the one thing she ever thinks about; KYO!!  HAW HAW HAW!!!  And Ayame was thinking about his one split end that he had just come across while he had been stroking his hair lovingly.  Shigure was still brainstorming on why Hatori had erased his memory.  Haru…well, he didn't have time to think about something before he was interrupted.

By…HATORI!!  "You know," he started.  "While we're just standing here pondering, they're probably getting further and further away."

"Who?" said everyone with a raised eyebrow.

Hatori paused.  "Kyo, Tohru and Momiji." He replied.

"Oh right." Said Shigure.  "But who ever said that they were outside in the first place?"

"Well they're not in here." Hatori said.

"When you say 'here', you mean the cabin right?" Ayame said.

"What else would 'here' mean?" Hatori said, looking annoyed.

"You have to learn to be more specific because not EVERYONE can read Hatori's mind." Said Ayame, crossing his arms.

"I got it!" said Kagura, slamming her fist into her palm.  "I bet they drove the car somewhere!"

"There is no car!" said Shigure.  "Hatori crashed it.  Remember?  You were there after all."

"There's no car?" Haru said, looking surprised.  "Then how did we get here?"

"Here meaning the cabin, right?" said Ayame.

"No, the car." Said Haru.  Then he paused.  "Wait…no…it was the cabin.  Actually, I don't really know now.  I'm confused…"

"Imagine how I feel!" said Ayame, throwing his hands up in the air.

"I think we should go and find the other three kids…" started Hatori.

"Does anyone have a pocketknife that has a teeny little pair of scissors?" Ayame said suddenly.

"I do." Said Shigure, pulling a pocketknife out of his sleeve.  "Why?"

"My split end." Ayame replied.  "It's really bothering me." He then cut the little piece of hair off and the expression on his face making him look as though he were cutting off a few of his fingers.  "Thank you." He said, handing the pocket knife back to Shigure.

"No problem." Said Shigure, sticking it back in his sleeve.

Then there was silence.

"Are you two done now?" Hatori asked.

"Yup." Said Ayame and Shigure, giving Hatori the thumbs up.

"Okay then." Said Hatori.  "NOW let's go and find the three missing kids."

"Let's just go have Yuki, Haru, Akito and Tohru find them." Said Ayame, sitting down on the coach.

"I'm Kagura!" whined Kagura, throwing a temper tantrum.

"Right, whatever." Said Ayame, fishing around on the coffee table for a suitable magazine to read.

"But if we sent them out to look then they'd…" started Hatori but then he realized that trying to argue with Ayame was pointless.  "Never mind.  Shigure, how about you and I go and search for the kids and Ayame stays here to watch the other four?"  Then he stopped again.  "Wait, strike that."

"I'll stay here with Ayame then!" said Shigure since he really didn't want to go out and search anyway.

"But you two are definitely not responsible enough to stay home together with four children." Said Hatori.  "So the thing to do would be for me to take Ayame with me to go and find the other kids because you, Shigure, are more mature than Ayame."

"Yes, this is true." Said Shigure.

"BUT, it doesn't look as though Ayame is going to be moving at all." Said Hatori, looking at Ayame who was reading his beloved Vogue Magazine.

"No he doesn't." agreed Shigure.

"So maybe we could ALL just go to find them." Said Hatori.  "But then again…it's not like you two will do anything except complain so I might as well just take all the kids and go by myself."

"Very good!" said Shigure.  "You figured it out all by yourself!  Now hurry and find them before they get too far away!"

"But that doesn't make any sense." Said Hatori since he just came up with that previous idea just to make fun of Shigure and Ayame and never actually expected them to go along with it!

"Fine…we'll watch…Akito." Said Shigure, looking at Akito who wasn't going to move.  Ever.

"And how about I leave another kid behind too?" Hatori suggested.  "How about Haru?  He doesn't ever do anything bad.  Come to think of it…he doesn't ever do anything at all.  And I'll also leave you with…Kagura."

"But I want to go meet Kyo!" whined Kagura.

"And I DON'T want to go meet Kyo!" said Yuki.

"Fine, I'll leave Yuki behind." Said Hatori.  "Wait…no.  Ayame and Yuki don't mix but then again…Yuki and Kyo don't mix either so no matter where Yuki goes it's going to be a conflict.  I should probably just leave him behind so that there wouldn't be a disaster with the kids but…my common sense is telling me to take him with me."

"Don't worry!" said Shigure.  "I'LL take good care of Yuki!"

"Shigure, I know from past experience that when Ayame starts making fun of Yuki or any child for that matter, you just join right in with him." Hatori said truthfully.

"Gasp!" said Shigure.  "How dare you say such a thing!  I am hurt!"

Hatori considered this for a good ten seconds.  "Well, okay." He said.  "I'll leave Yuki behind but if I get any stories about you torturing him then I'll never tell you why I erased your memory."

"OKAY!!!" said Shigure excitedly.

"All right." Said Hatori as he opened the door and left.  Kagura followed after him.

Everyone didn't say anything for a minute.

"Where's Hatori going?" asked Haru.

Ayame looked up from his magazine.  "Yeah, where IS Hatori going?"

"Um…I think he went…um…to the store or something." Said Shigure with a shrug as he walked over to the coach, pushed Akito down and then sat in the empty spot where Akito USED to be.

"What can I do for fun?" whined Yuki.

"Play with Haru." Said Shigure.

"But…" Yuki said, looking at Haru who was just standing there scratching his head with that blank, dazed Haru-ish look on his face, probably still wondering where Hatori and Kagura had wandered off to.

"Well, get his attention." Said Shigure.  "Jiggle some keys or something!"

"I don't have any keys!" whined Yuki.

Shigure pulled some keys out of his sleeve.  "Here." He said.

Yuki shook the keys a little bit until Haru finally realized that the keys were jiggling and started looking around until he finally located Yuki who was standing there with the keys.  He looked at the keys and nodded in a very satisfied fashion as if his goal was completed…which it probably was.  When Haru didn't change his reaction or say anything, Yuki groaned and handed the keys back to Shigure.

"Well, you got his attention, now go play with him!" Shigure urged.

"I didn't get his attention!" whined Yuki.  "He's just confused again!"

"YUKI!!" yelled Ayame.  "SHUT UP!!!  I'M GETTING SICK OF HEARING YOUR STUPID VOICE!!!"

MEANWHILE!!!

"I'm getting tired!" complained Momiji.

"You haven't even been walking the whole time like me!" said Kyo as he stood up on a rock and looked all triumphant.

"I'm kinda tired too…" said Tohru.

"Well…I guess since you've been walking the whole time we can rest a little by that tree over there." Said Kyo.

"Can we rest by the river please?" Tohru asked in a very ditzy tone.

"No." said Kyo.  "I said the tree."

"I like rivers though!" said Tohru.

"YOU can rest by the river but I'M resting by the tree!" said Kyo as he stomped over to the tree.  Tohru didn't want to make Kyo feel bad about his tree so she went over to the tree too.  "I thought you were going to rest by the river!"

"Well…I WANTED to but I wanted to rest with you more!" said Tohru.

"But…you DID want to rest by the river, right?" Kyo asked.

"Yes." Said Tohru.

"FINE!!!" yelled Kyo.  "WE'LL REST BY THE RIVER!!!"

"But I wanna rest by the tree!" complained Momiji.

"Good!" said Kyo.  "All the more reason to rest by the river!"  Then he went over to the river and Tohru giggled and went over to the river too just as Kyo put the backpack that he had brought on the ground.  "Now, I brought some supplies."

"Isn't that Yuki's backpack?" said Tohru.

"I hope not!" said Kyo as he opened the backpack only to realize that all the stuff in it belonged to Yuki.  "Aw man!" said Kyo.  "You mean to tell me that I've been carrying around Yuki's backpack this whole time?  I have half a mind right now to just throw it in this river!  As a matter of fact, I think I WILL!"

"No!" said Tohru as her eyes started watering.  "Don't do it!  I know you and Yuki have your differences but that's no reason to throw his stuff into the river!"

"He would do the same to me!" said Kyo.

"No he wouldn't!" said Tohru.  "Because I would be here to stop him!"

"Well, I can't have Yuki topping me by listening to you." Said Kyo.  "So I won't throw his stuff in the river but I'm not carrying it back."

"I'll carry it!" said Tohru.

"No!" said Kyo.  "Momiji will carry it!"

"I don't wanna!" whined Momiji.

"That's okay, I'LL carry it!" said Tohru.

"Fine, I'LL carry it!!" yelled Kyo in a very frustrated tone as if he had been arguing for hours.

Tohru took this time to have some inner monologue.  "Wow!  I made a new discovery today about Kyo.  I don't know exactly what it is but I know that I made a discovery and that it's very good.  And I also know that whenever I make a new discovery, whether it be little or big, it always makes me happy!  And since I'm happy right now, I must have made a new discovery.  Making new discoveries about my friends makes me want to find out just a little more about them."

"So Kyo, what's your favorite color?" asked Tohru.

"What kind of stupid random question was that?!" yelled Kyo.

"I'M SORRY!!" said Tohru, waving her arms around foolishly.

"No, it's okay." Said Kyo.  "Ask as many stupid random questions as you want.  They're not stupid."

"Okay!" said Tohru.  "I'm happy now!"

"THE FROGS IN THE POND ARE CALLING MOMIJI YES IT'S TRUE!!!" Momiji bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"SHUT UP!!!" screamed Kyo, hitting Momiji on the head.

"WAAA!" said Momiji, not sounding like he was really crying at all.  "Kee-yo hit me!"

MEANWHILE!!!

Yuki was now doing a puzzle.  It had about twenty-four huge pieces yet he was still struggling.  It was also one of those foamy type puzzles so you could take it into the bath if you wanted to!

Haru was sitting all by himself, jingling keys.

Ayame and Shigure had left the room because they didn't want to be seen with the little kids even though no one was around to see them.

And you know what?  Akito was doing something different.  No, he wasn't being a lump.  Well…yeah, actually he was.  He was just a more LIVELY lump.

"Yuki…" he whispered.  

Yuki looked up from his puzzle.  "What?" he asked, looking around.

"Is Kyo bothering you?" Akito asked.

Yuki looked at Akito for a minute and didn't really say anything.

"Is Kyo bothering you?" Akito repeated, making a gesture that SO told Yuki to get his little fanny closer.

"Kyo's not here." Yuki answered, standing up.

"No, I mean in general." Said Akito in his creepy little kid voice.  "Is Kyo an annoyance?  Is he the fly in your soup?"

"Where have you been?" Yuki said, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry." Said Akito.  "I was just…confirming it."

"Well um…yeah, I guess he does bother me." Yuki said.  "A lot."

"Yes…that is not uncommon." Said Akito.  "The cat is the annoyance to the entire Souma family.  But he is more than the cat.  He is a monster."

"Um…okay…" said Yuki, getting a little scared.

"You, Yuki, are very special to me." Said Akito.

"Er…" started Yuki.  "You kind of changed the subject…"

"Which is why I want to make sure that you are happy." Said Akito.

"Uh…" said Yuki, looking longingly back at his puzzle.

"Do I bore you, Yuki?" asked Akito, sounding creepier than ever before.

"No!" said Yuki.  "I just…wanted to finish my puzzle.  Not that I don't want to talk to you or anything…it's just that you haven't really said anything this whole vacation and I'm a little confused."

"Come closer, Yuki." Said Akito.

"Um…I think I'm close enough." Said Yuki.

"No." said Akito.  "So I can reach you, Yuki."

"Uh…okay." Said Yuki, taking a few steps closer.

"Closer yet, Yuki." Said Akito.

"Why?" Yuki finally asked.

"Over here." Said Akito.

"What if I don't want to?" asked Yuki.

"I want to be able to hear you better." Said Akito.

Suddenly, the jingling stopped.  "Yuki." Said Haru.

Yuki turned around to look at Haru who had already started his jingling again.  "What?" asked Yuki.

Haru looked up.  "Nothing." He replied.

Yuki looked back at Akito who didn't say anything so Yuki decided to go back to his puzzle.

"Don't worry, Yuki." Said Akito suddenly.  "You are very important to me and as long as I'm around, Kyo will not bother you.  Now finish your puzzle, Yuki, and never be afraid again."

Just then, Shigure and Ayame came around the corner chuckling warmly about something crazy that only they would find funny.

Then Ayame turned and looked at Yuki.  "Yuki." He said mysteriously.

"WHAT?!" Yuki yelled, jumping up about ten feet in the air.

"Nothing." Said Ayame.  "I just wanted to distract you from your puzzle.  You were just so engrossed in your puzzle that I wanted to jerk you out of it for no reason."

MEANWHILE!!!

Hatori and Kagura were still standing outside the front door.

"Why aren't we looking for Kyo?" asked Kagura.

"Because we don't know if they went north, south, east or west." Hatori replied solemnly.  "And if they went north and we end up going south then we would just be going in the complete opposite direction."

"Well…if they went north then why would we go south?" asked Kagura.

"We don't exactly know which way they went." Hatori answered.

"But you just said that they went north." Kagura pointed out.

"That was just an example." Hatori replied.

"But what if it's true?" Kagura asked.

"We don't know that for sure." Said Hatori, trying to remain patient with Kagura since she was still just a furling.  "What if we go north and they actually went south?"

"Then we can go south." Said Kagura.

"I don't think you understand." Said Hatori.

"No, Hatori, I don't think YOU understand." Kagura said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Excuse me?" Hatori said.

"You're excused." Said Kagura.

Hatori decided to ignore her and took a glance around in vain hope that maybe they were just chilling around the yard or perhaps they had returned from wherever they had gone.  But alas, they were nowhere to be seen.

"How far could they have possibly gone?" Hatori wondered out loud.  "I mean, they're just a couple of kids…"

MEANWHILE!!!

"Wow!" said Kyo as he pushed the door open to a convenient store.  "I knew I recognized this store!"

"I remember how long the drive was!" said Tohru happily.

"I wasn't there." Said Momiji.  Oh, just in case you didn't already know, which you probably didn't, Momiji has turned back into a human.  He turned back a long time ago but you didn't know because we didn't tell you but now you have no excuse for not knowing because here we are making a big deal about it.

"Let's get a lot of supplies!" said Kyo as he ran down one of the isles.  Convenient Store Bob watched them run down and then waited for their parental supervision to walk in the door.

But obviously none did.

When Kyo, Tohru and Momiji approached the cash register with their arms filled with assorted goods and items and placed it all on the counter, Convenient Store Bob became suspicious!  After all, he was a very suspicious fellow.  "Do you three have any money?"

"Nope!" said Kyo.  "Do we need any?"

"Yes." Said Convenient Store Bob.

"Can you let it slide just this once?" asked Momiji.

"No, I'm going to have to ask where your parents are." Said Convenient Store Bob.

"They're at home!" said Tohru.  "We're here on a vacation with some of our friends who are old enough to drive."

"My mom is always in my heart!" said Momiji but he was ignored.

"Where are you staying?" asked Convenient Store Bob.

"The Souma Cabin!" said Kyo.  Since the Soumas are such rich and prominent people and probably even owned the convenient store too, Convenient Store Bob knew who they were.

"I'm a Souma too!" said Convenient Store Bob.  "Do you three happen to know my nephew Ritsu?"

"Wow!" said Tohru.  "I've met another member of the Souma family!  I always get so happy!  Are you a Jyuunishi person?"

"No." said Convenient Store Bob Souma.  "Are you?"

"I'm not even a Souma!" chuckled Tohru.

"GASP!  And you know the secret?!" gasped Convenient Store Bob Souma.

"Well…YOU do." Said Kyo.

"I'm a Souma." Said Convenient Store Bob Souma.

"Oh…oh right." Said Kyo.

"So you three are staying at the Souma Cabin and you're not even Soumas?!" demanded Convenient Store Bob Souma.

"No, we're Soumas." Said Kyo, pointing to himself and Momiji.

"And we're members of the Jyuunishi too!" said Momiji.  "I'm the rabbit!"

"And what animal are YOU?" Convenient Store Bob Souma asked Kyo.

"That's none of your business." Said Kyo, crossing his arms.

"He's the cat!" said Tohru knavishly.

"YOU are the cat?" said Convenient Store Bob Souma.  "As a proud member of the Souma family, I must hold utter prejudice against you for no reason whatsoever."

"Well I'm used to it." Said Kyo, scoffing.

"That's not very nice!" said Tohru.  "I know plenty of Soumas that aren't prejudiced!"

"Well, members of the Jyuunishi don't count." Said Convenient Store Bob Souma.

"Why not?" asked Tohru.  "Would you think they'd count as DOUBLE or even TRIPLE?"

"Um…no." said Convenient Store Bob Souma.  

Suddenly, the little bell to the door rang which signaled a new customer coming in.

"Uncle Bob?" came a voice.  Convenient Store Bob Souma turned his head to see his ten-year-old cousin who turned into a monkey upon hugging someone of the opposite gender whose name just so happened to be RITSU!!

"Speaking of the devil!" Convenient Store Bob Souma said excitedly.  "What are you doing here…"

"OH NO!!!" Ritsu yelled as he clutched onto his head and screamed.  "WHAT HORRIBLE THINGS I MUST HAVE DONE TO BE CONSIDERED AS THE DEVIL HIMSELF!!!  I AM HORRIBLE!!  I AM TERRIBLE!  I SHOULD DIE RIGHT NOW!!  I'M SORRY FOR EVER COMING INTO YOUR LIVES AND MAKING YOU THINK SO POORLY OF ME AND HAVING MY HORRIBLENESS REFELECT UPON MY FAMILY!!!"

Suddenly, Ritsu's mother ran into the restaurant as fast as she could.

"I DIDN'T HEAR WHAT HORRIBLE THING MY SON MUST HAVE DONE BUT WHATEVER IT IS, I'M SO SORRY!!" she yelled ever louder than Ritsu.  "I AM BUT A WORM IN YOUR PRESENCE!!"

"AND I AM LOWER THAN A WORM!!" Ritsu wailed.

"I was kind of glad that we had left him behind in the first place…" said Kyo quietly.  Ritsu's mother heard him with her impeccable hearing.

"I'M TERRIBLY SORRY THAT MY SON IS SO BAD THAT YOU WOULD LEAVE HIM BEHIND PURPOSEFULLY!!  I THOUGHT YOU LEFT HIM BEHIND ACCIDENTELY BECAUSE HE WAS NOT ON TIME OR BECAUSE OF SOME OTHER FAULT ENTIRELY DERIVED FROM HIMSELF!!!  NOW I KNOW THAT HE WAS LEFT BEHIND BECAUSE EVERYONE HATES HIM!!!  OH GOMENASAI!!!"  (I haven't heard dub-Ritsu or dub-Okami/The Land Lady so I don't know how crazy they sound when they rant.  I assume they won't sound as horrible as dub-Momiji but that's not saying much because NO ONE can sound as horrible as dub-Momiji.  Oh gomenasai.)

MEANWHILE!!!

"I finished my puzzle!!" shrieked Yuki suddenly as he sprung up and was just about to do a little jig but then realized that everyone around him would most likely make fun of him if he did.  I mean, everyone was already giving him a skeptical glare after shrieking foolishly.

"I'm so happy for you, Yuki." Said Ayame.

"No you're not!" said Yuki.

"What do you mean?" said Ayame.  "I am SO proud of you!"

"You're just making fun of me!" Yuki said angrily.

Ayame gasped.  "ME?  Make fun of YOU?  Come now, I think you know me better than THAT!"

"Yeah, that's the point." Said Yuki.

"Yuki, I just absolutely love you." Said Ayame.

"Ayame, don't tease Yuki." Laughed Shigure.

Then Ayame and Shigure chuckled warmly together at Yuki who started sniffling pathetically.

Just then, Hatori and Kagura walked back in the door.

"Where's everyone else?" asked Shigure.

"We figured it was pointless to wander aimlessly off in a random direction." Hatori replied.

"But if you were going in a direction then it wouldn't be aimless." Said Ayame.

Hatori decided to ignore Ayame.

They stood there in silence for…um…a certain amount of time until suddenly, the doorbell rang!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

"I thought the power was out." Said Hatori.

"It came back on while you stood outside doing nothing." Said Ayame, crossing his legs and getting comfortable.  Everyone looked at each other for a good seven seconds.  "Answer the door, Hatori!!!"

"Why are you two incapable?" asked Hatori.

"Because you're the closest!!" yelled Ayame.  Hatori couldn't argue with THAT logic so he turned around and opened the door since the door was in arm length.  When he opened it, he saw some random man, Kyo, Tohru and Momiji!!!

"I found a few stray Soumas!!" said the man.

"I'm not a Souma!" chuckled Tohru.

"Thank you." Said Hatori as he slammed the door on the guy's face only after pulling the three children in the door.  He was just about to lecture them in great length when there was another knock at the door.  He opened it and the guy was still standing there.

"You know, I'M a Souma too." Said the guy who was actually Convenient Store Bob Souma.

"That's great." Said Hatori as he was JUST about to slam the door again but Convenient Store Bob Souma put his foot in the door.

"You know, I had a feeling you were going to do that!" said Convenient Store Bob Souma.  "That's why I put my foot in the way."

"Er…okay." Said Hatori.

"Do you mind if I come in?" asked Convenient Store Bob Souma.  "I've been here before!  I came on a vacation here a few years ago."

"We're using the cabin right now." Said Hatori.

"Don't mind if I do!" said Convenient Store Bob Souma as he pushed right by Hatori and started strolling in the house.  Everyone who was already inside looked at Convenient Store Bob Souma and then at Hatori and then back at Convenient Store Bob Souma and then back at Hatori and then back at Convenient Store Bob Souma and then…then they didn't look at anything.  They just closed their eyes.

"Um…what's he doing here?" Shigure asked Hatori.

"He says he's a Souma." Said Hatori.

"Well he's not welcome on our Jyuunishi, Tohru, Kyo and Akito Adventures in a Cabin!" said Ayame, standing up as if he were appalled.

"GASP!!" said Convenient Store Bob Souma.  "Are you all part of the zodiac curse?"

"Please just leave." Said everyone.

"NO!!!" said Convenient Store Bob Souma who will just be known as Bob from now on.  "So guys, what should we do?"

Everyone didn't know how to tell Bob to leave since they had already tried asking him nicely and that obviously didn't work because he was still here and he thought he was included.

"Do you mind if I watch the television?" asked Bob.

"There is no television." Said a random child who had already searched the house for a television.

"YES THERE IS!!!" screamed Bob as he ran over to a cabinet and opened it and then spun some stuff around until it finally revealed a television just kind of being a television.

"YAY!!!" cheered the kids.

"You're not welcome here." Said Ayame to Bob.

"Oh so the cat's welcome and I'm not?" said Bob, pointing at Kyo.

"Yes." Said everyone as they killed Bob and then buried his body in the backyard.  But just kidding.  They just punted him out of the house right into the convenient store which meant that they now had his car!!!  HURRAH!!!


	9. Jyuunishi Dances and Guy Talk!

"What can we do now that we have this television?" asked Shigure.

"Wow!!" screamed Momiji.  "Look at all the video tapes that are in this drawer!!"

"Well, I guess we could watch video tapes!" said Ayame.

"What tapes are these?" wondered Tohru.  "All they have is a bunch of dates on them all the way from 1975 to 1989!!"

In case you're confused, we'll explain it to you.  The show takes place in 1999 because that's the year of Momiji's New Year's Dance.  Now, this story takes place ten years earlier so it's 1989.  Get it?  Good!

"Oh, these are the New Year's Dances." Said Shigure, pushing all the kids aside as if he was parting the sea like Moses.

"Let's watch either 1989 or 1977!" suggested Ayame.

"YAY!!" cheered Tohru.  "I wanna watch all of them!"

"I don't wanna watch ANY of them!" declared Kyo.  "These stupid dances are nothing to get excited about!  I'm going upstairs!"  And that's exactly…what… he did.

"Well…he's not supposed to watch them ANYWAY!" chuckled Shigure as he went right for 1982.

"NO!!" yelled Ayame.  "We're watching 1989!"

"Wait…better yet…" said Shigure, pulling out 1976.  "1976."

"What happened in 1976…?  Oh right…" said Ayame with a devious grin towards Hatori.

"Why would you want to watch something like that?" said Hatori with a sigh.

"We're definitely watching this one first." Said Ayame.

"What's so great about it?" asked Yuki.

"Let's just say that Hatori's costume was a little big for him that night." Shigure answered.  "And, considering Hatori was only four years of age and didn't know any better, he tripped over…"

"That's enough." Hatori interrupted.  "Why don't we watch YOUR dance, Ayame?"

"No, I'd much rather watch the dance that shamed the Year of the Dragon considering it was your first dance and all." Ayame answered.  "But we'll definitely watch mine after.  Both of them."

"I'd prefer if we didn't watch mine." Started Hatori but he was too late for Ayame had already put the video in AND snatched the remote AND made popcorn!  Everyone sat on the couch and watch while laughing heartily at poor Baby Hatori's expense as Ayame kept rewinding the tripping part over and over and pausing it half way through to see the expression on Hatori's face and see all the people in the background laughing and then afterwards when Hatori was crying.  Of course, at this point in time, there were none of the characters that we know and love except for Ayame, Hatori, Shigure and the chicken.  Everyone else were some crazy old people because there had to be SOMEONE to be the curses before our present cursed people.  They just haven't died and passed their curses along quite yet.

"I can't find me." Said Haru.

"You're not born yet." Said Shigure.

"Yes I am." Said Haru.

"Fine, you're right there." Said Shigure, pointing to some random old guy with white hair.

"Oh." Said Haru.

"Look, I got Hatori's face at a funny moment!" laughed Ayame.

"This isn't funny anymore." Said Hatori.  "In fact, it was never funny."

"But you were so cute, Hatori!" said Tohru.  "You look like you only younger and very sad!"

"It's time to end this year." Said Hatori.

"Fine, let's watch 1988!" Shigure said excitedly.

"Why, Shigure, isn't that ALSO the Year of the Dragon?" asked Ayame.

"Yup." Shigure replied, standing up and retrieving the 1988 video.  "This is the year that Haru thought that it would be okay to just go out and dance along with Hatori."  With that, he put the video in.

"There Hatori goes, shaming the Year of the Dragon AGAIN!" sighed Ayame, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Hey, there's me!!" yelled Yuki, jumping up out of his seat as he pointed to himself standing in the background.

"I remember this!" said Momiji.  "This was last year!"

"Wait guys, here comes Haru…!" said Ayame.  "Right…now!"  Just as he said that, Haru suddenly came running out and started dancing around like a fool and then crashed into Hatori who fell backwards into a buffet table.

"That's so funny!" said Tohru.  "Poor Hatori!  Your dance was ruined again!"

"It's okay." Said Hatori though you could tell in his tone of voice that he was crying on the inside and secretly wanted to crawl under the couch and die.

"Watch this!" said Ayame as he rewound and fast-forwarded the part where Hatori was splashing into the punch.  "Into the punch, out of the punch, into the punch, out of the punch!"

"Ayame, don't make me take that remote away from you." Threatened Hatori because this dance just so happened to be last year so it was recent so it's not like he could look back on it and laugh at his younger self falling into the punch because as I stated earlier, it was only last year.

"Let's watch mine now!" said Ayame as he pulled 1988 out and put in 1977.  They all watched little mini-five-year-old-Ayame dance around looking way too enthusiastic.  "I was such a beautiful child." Said Ayame, wiping a tear from his eye.  "And I didn't mess up ONCE!" he added, eyeing Hatori who tried not to look like he cared but you could tell he was ready to break down into tears but not really.

"Can we watch my video?" asked Haru who was clutching his 1985 tape.

"We still haven't watched my 1989 tape." Said Ayame.

"Ayame, that was only a few months ago." Said Hatori.  "We all remember it just fine and don't need to watch it."

"I didn't see it!" Tohru said.

"That's okay." Said Hatori.

"Can we watch my video?" Haru asked again since everyone was ignoring him.

"Watching your video will be pointless." Ayame explained.  "You didn't do anything for your dance.  You didn't even dance.  I don't even think you could walk at that point in your life.  It was the stupidest thing in the world to put out a one-year-old and expect him to go and do something besides sit there.  But then again, they did it the previous year with Yuki so I guess it was the second stupidest thing in the world."

"Yeah and you thought YOU were gypped of having to do your first dance at the age of four!" said Shigure, slapping Hatori on the back.  "I, however, had my first dance at the age of ten."

"Aren't you just so lucky?" Hatori said sarcastically.

"Can we watch my video?" Haru asked again.

"NO!!" yelled Ayame.

"But I'm going to turn into Black Haru…" Haru started.

"Oh very well but we're NOT watching the whole thing." Said Shigure as he turned Ayame's video off and put in 1985.

"HEY!!!" yelled Ayame as Haru's video started.

"Hatori, I hope you don't come out and ruin my dance because I remember you doing that." Said Haru.

"Well, clearly you don't remember correctly because you were the one who ruined MY dance." Hatori replied.

Suddenly, Akito let out a grunt and fell off the couch.  Everyone paused for a minute until Ayame finally sprung up and turned Haru's video off and gasped.

"I just remembered!" he said.  "No one is supposed to see these except for the Jyuunishi and Akito!"

Everyone gasped dramatically.

"Tohru…I think you have to go upstairs and pretend as though you never saw these." Said Hatori.

"I'm so sorry!" Tohru exclaimed, jumping up off the couch and running up the stairs.

"Uh…we're sorry Akito, we didn't realize that Tohru was here." Shigure explained.  "It'll never happen again."

They sat in silence.

"Can we put my movie back on?" asked Haru.

"Let's watch MY movie now!" Shigure declared, springing up and switching the videos to 1982 in record-breaking time.  "Look at how cute I was!!"

"Shigure, ten-year-olds aren't cute." Said Kagura as if she were an expert on cute things.  Which she probably was considering she's the only girl present in the room.

"I was a cute ten-year-old." Shigure assured everyone.

"All right, my video next!" said Momiji as he ran over and turned the VCR off.

"Hey!" yelled Shigure.  "We were watching that!"

"YOU were watching it." Said Yuki.

"I just hate it when the little kids dis us." Sighed Shigure.

"Look at the time!" gasped Ayame suddenly.  "It's nearly midnight!"

Kagura looked up at the clock.  "Um…no it isn't." she said.  "It's only nine o'clock."

"No it isn't!" said Ayame.

"Ayame, they're not stupid." Said Shigure.  "They ALL can probably tell time.  Well…except for maybe Haru."

"That's not true." Said Haru.  "I can tell time."

"Don't worry, we know that, Shigure's just implying that you're certainly not one of the brightest ones here." Said Ayame, patting Haru on the head.

"I thought we were watching MY video." Said Haru.

"I rest my case." Said Ayame and Shigure AT THE EXACT SAME TIME!!!!

"Well, nine o'clock is a fine bedtime for children." Hatori declared, standing up.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" screamed all the kids including Tohru and Kyo from the loft.

"Yes, I agree!" Ayame…agreed.  "Everyone in their pajamas and don't even THINK about coming upstairs in our loft tonight!!  Last night was a pain in the neck and I hardly got any sleep."

"What are you talking about Ayame?" Hatori said.  "You slept like a rock."

"And your snoring prevented US from sleeping!" Shigure added.

"Oh right!" said Ayame with a laugh.  "I suppose I was thinking of some OTHER night in which I didn't get any sleep."

The elders then went upstairs to change into their pajamas and kicked Tohru and Kyo downstairs.  Not LITERALLY but you know.

"Now I don't have anything to wear tomorrow." Said Hatori.

"You can always wear something of mine!" offered Shigure.  "My stuff is probably more Hatori than Ayame's stuff."

Hatori raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

Just then, Momiji came up the stairs.  "We never had dinner…" he whined.

"Hatori, you lazy bum!" gasped Ayame.  "You didn't feed the children!"

Hatori almost lost his temper and chopped Ayame's legs off right then and there.  But luckily, Hatori is mentally stable so he didn't end up doing something rash like that.  He was just about to do the mature thing and explain to Ayame that he had done just about everything else the entire vacation when Ayame went and started chuckling and slapping Hatori on the back.

"I was just kidding!!" he laughed.  "I didn't expect YOU to make dinner for them while we were watching the movies!"

"I did." Said Shigure.

And Shigure almost got his legs chopped off as well but he was quick to add that he too was kidding.

"What, your bacon and snacks from the store weren't filling enough?" Ayame asked Momiji as if he were offended.

"Everyone TOOK my bacon!" Momiji complained. "And all I had was celery!"

"Stop complaining you cry baby!" said Ayame.  "There are people starving all over the world!"

"But…" started Momiji with a sniffle.

"I SAID GO AWAY!!" Ayame screamed.  Momiji started crying and descended the ladder.

"There has got to be easier ways of dealing with them." Said Hatori.

"I haven't found any yet." Said Ayame as he felt satisfied with his recent domination of Momiji.

There was a pause.

"Okay so…" said Shigure slowly.  "GUY TALK!!"

"I could SO tell that you just WANTED to say 'girl' talk." said Ayame.  Shigure stopped for a minute, thought about this and then shook his head.

"No…" said Shigure.  "I don't think I wanted to say that.  I'm not a girl."

"OH NO!!" came a distressed sounding voice from downstairs.

"Just ignore whoever it is…" said Ayame with a sigh.

"But that was TOHRU'S voice!" said Shigure.

"Oh, in THAT case…" said Ayame as he stood up and walked toward the ladder followed by Shigure.  Hatori was already halfway down the ladder because even if it wasn't Tohru he was going to find out what was going on.

"I'm SO sorry!" Tohru cried as tears streamed down her cheeks.  "It was an accident!  I didn't mean to!"

"Didn't mean to what?" asked Hatori.

"She just told you." Said Kagura.

"I'm so sorry!" Tohru begged.  "I just couldn't get out of my sleeping bag fast enough!  My mom always told me that I was good at making it to the bathroom in time but I just couldn't!"

"So you had an accident?" asked Hatori with no change in expression.  Tohru nodded and sniffed.

"Ew…" said Ayame as he backed off because he didn't want to be stuck with clean-up duty.

"Just bring your sleeping bag outside and we'll make a little bed for you." Said Hatori.  Tohru nodded and brought her sleeping bag outside and then went into the bathroom to change into her other pair of Barbie Pajamas.

"Out of what?" asked Yuki.  "We couldn't make one for ME when I didn't have a place to sleep."

"This is different, Yuki." Said Shigure.

"Yeah." Said Ayame.  "We love Tohru." 

"We could just spread all of our sleeping bags out so that we can have one big bed!" Kagura suggested.

"I don't want Yuki sleeping on my sleeping bag!" Kyo complained.

"And Kyo's cow sleeping bag offends me." Said Haru.  "So much."

"It's either lie all the sleeping bags out for everyone or let Tohru have your sleeping bag all together!" threatened Shigure.

"Fine!!" Said Kyo as if he were all reasonable and such.  "We can lie my sleeping bag out but Yuki can't sleep on it!"

"I wasn't going to!" Yuki said as he stuck out his tongue.

Hatori, for some odd reason (it might be because of all the hard work he had been doing this whole vacation) was extremely fatigued and really wanted to go to bed.  So he told all the kids that they were in charge of lying out the sleeping bags themselves.  

Actually, he told Ayame and Shigure to do it but he might as well have told the kids to just do it themselves by relaying the message through Ayame and Shigure like a rousing game of 'telephone'!

So the three older people climbed the ladder back into the loft and left all the younger people to sort out their bedtime positions.

Tohru came back just in time to help out with this.

"You don't have to bother working so hard to help me out." Said Tohru.  "I'll be happy just sleeping on the floor!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" said Yuki.  "If I had a sleeping bag, I'd give it to you!"

"You can have mine!" Momiji offered as he climbed out of his sleeping bag and tossed it at Tohru.

"No, I couldn't!" Tohru yelled.

"You can have mine too!" Kagura said.  "We can share it!"

"Wait…" said Haru as he unzipped his sleeping bag.  "I thought we were lying them all out…"

Tohru started tearing at the eyes.  All of her friends were being so nice to her and she needed to repay them!  She simply couldn't take their kind generosity and let it go not rewarded!  She couldn't take their generosity in the first place!

But she got over it a second later and everyone went to sleep.  YAY!!


	10. A Crazy Car Ride and A Magic Show!

THE NEXT MORNING!!!

The morning was very still.  Suddenly, Ayame sat straight up in bed with his finger pointed in the air.

"I've got it!!" he bellowed.  This, of course, caused everyone that was up in the loft to awaken.  That means that Shigure and Hatori woke up because Ayame was ALREADY awake.

"What have you got?" whined Shigure who was obviously enraged about being awakened early.  Of course, you couldn't tell that he was enraged because he was still half asleep and he was whining.

"An idea!" Ayame replied, not lowering his voice at all.

"That's a first." Said Hatori which caused everyone else to wake up in the entire cabin!!  They were all angry at Hatori for waking them up.  Oh well!

"So what was your idea?" asked Shigure as everyone sat around the kitchen table.

"It's an idea of what we can do today." Ayame replied as he poured himself a bowl of cereal.  It was that soggy box of cereal that we described earlier but that didn't bother him.  Everyone was eating.

"Were we even brainstorming on what we could do today?" wondered Hatori out loud.

"Well, it's just that yesterday was a very confined day because we didn't have a car AND it was raining outside." Ayame started.  "So I figured we could take our recently acquired car out on this sunny day and explore to see if there's any civilization near by and perhaps do some shopping."

"YAY!!!!" cheered Kagura and Tohru. 

"Sounds okay to me." Said Shigure.

"All right." Said Hatori with a shrug.

"Wow!" said Ayame.  "Hatori actually agreed with one of my ideas without bringing up an argument or possible flaw!"

Everyone gave a mighty cheer and went outside and were JUST about to pile into the car when they realized that it was a two seats in the front and three seats in the back kind of cars.

"Well, here's the flaw." Said Hatori.  "Convenient Store Bob Souma owned a very small car.  Now, either some of us can't go, we all cram in uncomfortably or some of the smaller animals can sit on Tohru's lap."

"HURRAY!!!" cheered Tohru.

"Any volunteers?" Hatori asked.

"I will." Said Haru.

"No…you'd actually be bigger." Said Hatori.

"I still volunteer." Said Haru as if he was now passionate about turning into his animal.

"Well, let's figure this out strategically." Said Hatori.  "Now, I'll be driving and Shigure…you can stay human and sit in the passenger seat since you're pretty big as a dog too.  Ayame, you can turn into a snake and…"

"Wait…why?" demanded Ayame.

"Because you're one of the biggest ones here as a human but as an animal, you're one of the smallest ones." Hatori explained.

"Same goes for you." Said Ayame, crossing his arms.

"I'm just a better driver than you, then." Said Hatori.

"Um, excuse me Mr. I-think-I'll-just-go-out-and-blow-up-the-car?" Ayame said, tapping his foot.  "I wasn't the one who blew up the car."

"That was a freak accident." Hatori answered.

"It was still an accident." Said Ayame.  "What if one of the children had gotten hurt?!"  Hatori was about to retort when Ayame interrupted him with; "You have no argument!  Plus, it was my idea to go into town so just let me drive!  Now just give Tohru a nice big hug and we can finally be on our way!"

"Yeah, give me a nice big hug!" cheered Tohru as she jumped up and hugged Hatori's legs so he turned into a seahorse!!  HURRAH!!!  SEAHORSES ARE SO MUCH FUN!!!

"See?  You might as well now since you're already a seahorse!" chuckled Shigure since this whole argument didn't really concern him so he could say stupid things like that.  But then again, Shigure can ALWAYS say stupid things like that even if he IS in an argument that concerns him.  That crazy Shigure!

"As long as I remain dry…" started Hatori the Seahorse.

"Stop!" said Shigure.  "I can't take you seriously when you're a seahorse.  Just don't talk or anything."

"Just remember to bring my clothes." Said Hatori.

"OH NO!!" screamed Tohru.  "I need to get water!!"

"Not yet, Tohru." Said Ayame.

"All right, everyone except for Haru go and hug Tohru!" Ayame instructed.

"But I wanted to hug Tohru." Complained Haru even though he probably just made that up right then and there.

So they all took their turns hugging Tohru and she carried Hatori, Kyo, Yuki and Momiji into the car and sat them down on her lap looking FAR too content.  Kagura sat in the middle and Haru sat on the other side.  Shigure sat in the front with Akito on his lap and…OH NO!!!  AYAME SAT IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT!!!  ARGH!!

"READY?!" yelled Ayame as he stuck the key into the ignition but he put it in upside down.  "Oops." He chuckled as he fixed it and started the car.  He started driving at about two miles an hour down the middle of the road.  It was a good thing that they were practically in the middle of nowhere or else there would be some ungry people behind them beeping their crazy horns like fools NOT TO MENTION the fact that he was driving down the middle of the road but I really already said that.

"A little faster, Ayame." Said Hatori.

"Hatori, if you talk again then we're going to throw you out the window." Shigure threatened.

Hatori knew that Shigure would NEVER throw him out the window but he decided that he never really talks anyway and just let Shigure feel like he had accomplished something.

"I'm bored." Said Haru.  "I wish I were a cow right now.  If only I had hugged Tohru then I would be a cow and I would be happy."

"Being an animal shouldn't make you happy." Said Kagura since she was really the only one who was listening to him or heard him for that matter.

"Have you ever been a cow before?" Haru said as if being a cow just made the world go round.

"No, but I have been a boar." Kagura answered.

"I think if you asked anyone in the entire world then they couldn't tell you what it's like to be a cow." Haru continued.  "But then you could come and ask me and then I'd be able to tell you."

"That's nice Haru." Said Kagura.

"Well, being the only person in the world who is half cow does give you certain advantages." Haru said as if he was making any sense.

"What sort of advantages?" asked Kagura.

"My hair is naturally two colors." Haru answered.

"You're not half cow!" said Kyo from Tohru's lap who had just tuned in to the conversation.  "You're just a person who turns into a cow!"

"I am a cow." Said Haru.  "I am 50 percent cow."

"No you're not." Said Kyo.

"Yes I am." Haru said.

"I wouldn't call it HALF-COW…" said Yuki who had begun to listen as well.  "When I hear that, it makes me think of some horrible mixture between a person and a cow with…I don't know, a cow head and a person body or something."

"I wish I looked like that." Said Haru.

"No you don't!!" yelled Kyo.

"The coolest thing about being a cow is being bigger than everyone else." Haru said.

"I like being a bunny!" said Momiji.

"Being a cow is better." Haru said.

"How could you like turning into animals?" asked Kagura.  "I hate it."

"That's just because you're a pig." Haru said.  "If you were a cow like me, you'd love it."

"Stop saying you love it!!" Kyo yelled, throwing a temper tantrum.  "You're just trying to make fun of us because we're animals!!"

"No, I'm jealous." Haru said.  "I wish I were an animal right now.  But what I'd really like to be is a cow.  Sometimes I try to imagine being some other animal but then I get really sad because I stop to think how lucky I am that I'm the cow."

"Haru, are you being sarcastic?" asked Hatori who wanted to join in on the animal conversation.

"Well…at least I'm not a seahorse." Said Haru.

"Yeah…" said everyone.

"Here's Spanky and Macrame's Breakfast Fun Palace!" said Ayame as they drove past Spanky and Macrame's Breakfast Fun Palace.  

Everyone looked out the window and then yelled at Ayame to drive faster because this only went and showed them all JUST how slow Ayame was actually driving.

"FINE!!" yelled Ayame.  "I'll put the pedal to the metal!!"  And that's what he did.  And they drove really fast for a little while until he was finally yelled at to slow down.  "Drive faster, drive slower!  GEEZUMS!!  WHICH ONE?!  WILL YOU MAKE UP YOUR MINDS ALREADY?!"

Just then, everyone looked out the window to see a sign that said, 'Welcome to Swellsville!!  Population: 90'

Even though this doesn't really happen in real life, as they entered the town, the counter went up to 100!!!  HURRAH!!!

"We are ten percent of the population." Said Hatori.

"Hatori, seahorses are seen and not heard." Shigure said.

"HERE'S A PARKING SPOT!!!" screamed Ayame as he tore into a parking lot that had more than a hundred spots in it.  

"If every single person had a car in this town had a car then everyone would be able to find a spot!" said Yuki.

"Why would EVERYONE have a car?!" demanded Ayame.  "What if there's a baby or something?!  Why would a baby drive?!  Or have his own car for that matter?!  That's really stupid, Yuki."

"I thought it was clever…" whined Yuki.

All of the humanoids exited the car.  They waited around for about three minutes for all the animals to turn back into humans and then they got far too impatient and ran off and told the other group to meet up with them later.

This meant that Shigure, Ayame, Akito, Kagura, Haru and Tohru left Hatori, Yuki, Momiji and Kyo behind just in case you couldn't figure that out in your head.  Unless you figured that out and then read this paragraph then you wasted some of your precious, much needed brain cells that you certainly can't spare thinking about something that we were about to tell you.

"That was so mean!!" whined Momiji as he turned back into a human right then and there!!  He then got over his sadness and got dressed in one of his horrible and flamboyant Momiji-ish outfits.  "I'm gonna go and catch up with everyone else!" he declared.

"No you're not." Said Hatori who was STILL a seahorse.  "You are going to wait for the rest of us to turn back and then we'll all leave together."

Just then, by some bizarre and unexpected coincidence, Kyo and Yuki both turned back to humans at the exact same time!!  They argued about who turned back first as they got dressed.

They waited very not-so-patiently for about ten seconds before becoming bored.

"Can we just go now?" asked Yuki.

"No." Hatori answered.  "You must wait for me."

"But we're bored!" whined Kyo.

"Too bad." Said Hatori.

"Well…we're going to leave anyway." Said Kyo.

"We are?" said Momiji.

"WE ARE!!" yelled Kyo, getting all determined.

"YEAH!!" said Yuki.  "I'm not agreeing with you because I was going to suggest that anyway."

"ALL RIGHT!!!" agreed Momiji, getting excited.

"Bye Hatori, see you when you change back!" said no one in particular except for Momiji and Hatori.  Then they ran off before Hatori could command them to come back.  He could have chased after them if he were any animal except for a seahorse but unfortunately for him, he WAS a seahorse.

"All right, we're three mischievous young boys in a foreign town and we have no supervision!" said Yuki.

"What does 'mischievous' mean?" asked Momiji.  Yuki and Kyo looked at Momiji and then ignored him.

"I've got it!" said Kyo.  "Let's go into a restaurant, eat the most expensive thing on the menu and then leave…WITHOUT PAYING!!!"

"YEAH!!!" said all two of them.  Then they ran into the most restauranty looking place they could and sat down at the counter.

"Where are your parents, children?" asked the guy behind the counter.  He was GOING to call them young boys but then he looked at Yuki and Momiji and realized that two out of three of them were GIRLS!!!  Yes, WE know that they're really boys but this crazy man behind the counter who will be referred to as Jyou didn't know that!

"They're…uh…not here." Said Yuki.

"I can't serve you if you don't have any supervision." Said Jyou.

"Why not?!" demanded Kyo, slamming his hand down on the counter.  "Since when is that a law?!"

"Well…do you have any money to pay?" asked Jyou as he started cleaning a glass with a rag.

"He's on to us!" Kyo whispered to the gang.  Of course, since he's a little kid he didn't realize that his whispering was really just him talking only leaned over in the direction of the person he wanted to talk to.

"Why don't you three kids get your parents?" suggested Jyou.

"Let's get out of here!!" screamed Momiji.  Then he and the other two darted out of the restaurant as fast as they could.  Jyou didn't really care since he knew that their parents weren't going to come.

"Got any other plans?" Yuki said.

"How about…we go into a store and break something that looks really expensive?!" said Kyo.

"YEAH!!!" they ALL said.  They were just about to run into a store when they rounded the corner and crashed into someone.  Specifically, YUKI crashed into KAGURA!!  This caused Yuki to turn into a rat.  JUST KIDDING!!  You should know by now if you've watched the show that when cursed people hug each other, nothing happens.

But, instead of Yuki turning into a rat, there was a chain reaction that started!  The chain reaction wasn't very long or complicated.  All that happened was that when Kagura crashed, she let out a girly scream and Tohru ran over to see what was wrong and since Haru was STILL walk ever so aimlessly, he crashed into Tohru and turned into a cow!!  SURAH!!

"Isn't it great, Haru?!" said Tohru.  "You WANTED to turn into a cow and now you did!  Aren't you so happy now?"

Haru looked around at his shredded clothing just fluttering to the ground since, after all, he DID get bigger so instead of his clothes just being in a pile around him like everyone else, all of HIS clothes get torn into a zillion pieces because they're small and he's large.

"Isn't it great, Haru?" Tohru repeated since Haru seemed to not have heard her and you can never really tell with Haru.

"My clothes are ruined." Said Haru.  "Stupid…big…cow body."

"Hey, where's Hatori?" asked Ayame.  "Shouldn't he be watching you three?"

"He SHOULD be." Said Kyo.  "But he's still in the car.  Actually, he might be someplace else but for all we know, he's still in the car…just lying there."

"What an irresponsible lazy bum!!" said Ayame.  "Here we are carting seven kids around a town and Hatori's just lying in the car!"

"He's probably sleeping." Said Shigure who had Akito in a papoose.

Just then, Hatori walked around the corner buttoning his top button.  "There you are." He said though he didn't sound TERRIBLY anxious.  But then again, Hatori's voice shows little emotion.  "Wait…Haru's a cow.  Why?"

"Because he crashed into Tohru." Said Ayame.

"No, Tohru crashed into ME." Said Haru.

"No I didn't!" said Tohru with horseshoe eyes.

"Did anybody see you?" Hatori asked.

"I don't know." Haru said but he suddenly turned back into a person right then and there!!!  "I think people saw that though."

"WOW!!" said some random person.  "Didja see that, Pappy?  That thar moo-cow just turned inta a real boy raht in front a' mah eyes!"

"I have never been so embarrassed!" said Haru who was just standing there naked.  "He called me a moo-cow!"

"How'd that happen?" asked the random person's father who was wearing a fedora with a long red feather in it and a few fishing hooks.

"Well…if you and your son and anyone else who just saw that would just come with me into an excluded area where no one will see anything then I will explain everything to you entirely." Hatori said with intentions of just erasing everyone's memories.

"A MAGIC SHOW!!!" screamed some girl with a pink bow and blond curly hair and an overly cutesy pink dress.

"Yes." Said Hatori.  "A magic show.  It was just a trick.  I was GOING to explain that to you but this girl did a good enough job that I don't have to say anything else.  Now…if you'll excuse us…"

And Hatori had a Hulk moment and hoisted everyone except for Tohru above his head and carried them around the corner since there seem to be a lot of corners to walk around in this town.  "Let's just leave now." He said to everyone when they were out of earshot.

"NO!!" yelled everyone.

"We haven't even gone into any stores yet!" said Ayame.

"And I'm naked." Said Haru.

"Isn't that a reason that we SHOULD leave?" Hatori said.

"No." said Haru.  "We should stay longer."

"All right, let's get Haru some new clothes and then get out of here." Hatori said.

"I want my old clothes." Haru said.

"Here's all the pieces I could find!" Tohru said since she felt bad about ruining Haru's clothes and handed Haru all the shredded pieces of his clothes.  She then realized that he was naked and she was a girl so she shrieked and hid behind someone.

"This is the last straw." Said Haru.  "I am turning into Black Haru."

"Why?" asked some confused person.

"This was my favorite shirt." Haru explained.  "It was my H is for Haru shirt."

"You mean H is for Horse, right?" asked Momiji.

"No." said Haru.  "H is for Haru."

"I distinctly remember it saying H is for Horse." Said Momiji.

"H is also for Hatori!" said Tohru knavishly.

"I thought it said H is for House." Said Yuki.

"It said H is for Haru." Said Haru.

"Let's just quickly go now." Said Hatori as he had another Hulk moment and pushed them into a little kids store that sold toys AND clothes!!  HURRAY!!  So, while everyone was off picking out toys (including Ayame and Shigure), Hatori took Haru over to pick out clothes.

"I want to go pick out a toy." Said Haru.

"I hate to say it, Haru, but I think you're running out of clothes almost as fast as I am." Said Hatori.  "I'm actually wearing Shigure's clothes right now."

"So?" said Haru.

"Well, what I'm saying is that you're going to get clothes instead of a toy." Hatori said.

"That's not fair." Said Haru.  "I want clothes AND a toy."

Hatori wasn't about to sit here and argue with Haru.

"I want crayons." Said Haru.

"We have crayons back at the cabin." Hatori said.

"No we don't." Haru said.

Once again, Hatori wasn't going to argue with Haru and just allowed him to pick out some crayons and then got him some clothes to last him until they got home.  

"So is everyone ready to go?" asked Hatori as he went to the cash register.  Everyone ran up with their toys.  We'll tell you what they got so you don't have to think of it later.  And plus, it'll come up later on.

Haru got his crayons.  Kyo got himself a stamp and ink with a big letter K on it.  OH WHAT WILL HE DO WITH THAT?!  Kagura got a little kid's make-up kit.  Momiji got Wheelchair Olympic Barbie.  Tohru got a bead set with about ten thousand beads  Yuki got the board game: MOUSETRAP!!!  No pun intended.  Actually, yes.  It was intended.  Ayame got Pretty Pretty Princess because that game always makes him feel pretty.  Shigure got a Make-Your-Own-Diary from Jazzy Jewelry.  Akito got some Play-Doh.  Hatori decided that he was too old to be getting foolish toys so he just got himself one of those lollipops that spins when you press the button!!  It had TAZ on it!!

"Let's go home now." Said Hatori as he pocketed his lollipop, saving it until no one was looking.

Then they all went home.  We're not going to describe it because we don't feel like it.  And if we don't feel like doing something in a story that WE'RE writing, no one is going to tell us otherwise.  So, if you really want to, YOU can write the car ride home and then give it to us.  We won't submit it under this name and we probably won't read it either so don't bother wasting your time.


	11. The Stamp and the Prettiest of All the P...

"Who will help me set up Mousetrap?" Yuki asked, tearing the box of his game open so he would never be able to use that box again.

"I'LL help, Yuki!" gasped Ayame, kneeling down next to Yuki.

"No!" said Yuki.  "Not YOU!  You'll just ruin it!"

"No I won't!" Ayame insisted as he started setting it up.  Yuki wasn't about to argue because it was getting done.  Finally, when Ayame finished, he put all four of the little colored mice under the cage and let it fall down on them and then sat there chuckling warmly to himself since that is a very satisfying feeling so I can only IMAGINE how satisfying it can be if you're a mean older brother who's doing it to his little brother who turns into a rat.

AND AS IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH, he reached behind him and grabbed Tohru, who was making friendship bracelets for everyone, by the collar and then threw her at Yuki, TURNING HIM INTO A RAT!!  Then he pulled out a shoebox that was just lying around the house and dropped it on Yuki.

"That gets me every time!" laughed Ayame, slapping his knee and standing up.  Of course, he kicked over the little set up of mousetrap because he was finished with his cruel trick and couldn't have Yuki enjoying himself because of something HE did!  NOW THAT WOULD BE BAD!!

"Are you okay, Yuki?" Tohru exclaimed, throwing the shoebox off of Yuki.  He turned back into a person right then and there and clothed himself so that we won't have to deal with him being a rat.  YAY!!

Tohru decided to go back to her beads and pretend as though she didn't hear Yuki's request to play Mousetrap with him.

"I'm going to make everybody a bracelet!" Tohru declared.  "And you'll all have a different color!"  She was sitting at the craft table with Shigure, Akito and Haru as they played with their new toys.  "Does anybody want a specific color?"

No one really answered her because they were far too engrossed in their activities.  Haru was coloring, Shigure was decorating his brand new diary and Akito was lying there with his head on the table with his Play-Doh was next to his head but he was still in the papoose.

"Shigure?" she asked.  "Do you want any color for your bracelet?"

Shigure looked up from gluing a doily on the cover of his diary.  "What?" he asked, looking around.

"I'm making you all friendship bracelets!" Tohru exclaimed, not sounding frustrated at all.  "What color do you want yours to be?"

"Um…I don't mind." Shigure replied.  "Er…green…and um…orange."

"Okay!" said Tohru.  "How about you, Haru?  Should I just make it white and black like a cow since you like cows so much?" she added with a foolish chuckle.

"I'm coloring." Haru said.  Tohru figured that she probably wouldn't get a straight answer out of Haru so she only decided to make it black and white like a cow whether he liked it or not.  BUT OF COURSE HE WOULD LIKE IT!!!!

"Do you want a certain color, Akito?" Tohru asked with horseshoe eyes.  Akito only kind of grunted and twitched so Tohru decided to make him one with the brightest colors she could find so make him happier!!

"WIN THE OLYMPICS, BARBIE!!!" shrieked Momiji as Wheelchair Olympic Barbie wheeled past Tohru.  She was soon followed by Momiji who was cheering and waving his arms in the air.  Momiji ran by Tohru and grabbed Olympic Wheelchair Barbie when she didn't have any momentum anymore.  "Barbie, you've just won the Olympics!  What are you going to do now?!"

And with a squeaky voice he replied, "I'M GOING TO DISNEY LAND!!!"

With that, Momiji pulled out his Disney Land Barbie Play-set and started having Wheelchair Olympic Barbie going on all the wheelchair accessible rides.

Kagura was playing with her pretend make-up set.  In case you didn't catch it the first time around, it wasn't REAL make-up.  It was just colored plastic in the shape of make-up.  She was making herself pretty for her non-existent date with Kyo tonight!!

SPEAKING of Kyo, he had just ran by with his stamp with a big 'K' on it and stamped it on Yuki's game board.

"I claim this!" he declared.

"HEY!!!" yelled Yuki.  "THIS ISN'T YOURS!!!"

"It is now!" Kyo said.  "K is for Kyo."

"NO!! YOU got the stamp and I got this game!  You can't have BOTH!"

Kyo looked at the fuming Yuki for a minute and then stamped his face.

"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!" screamed Yuki, throwing a temper tantrum.

"I JUST DID!!!" laughed Kyo, excited over his recent triumph over Yuki which is probably the only one he'll ever have in his whole life so we should just let him be excited.

"What's going on here?" Hatori said, walking over.

"Kyo stamped me on the face!" Yuki yelled, pointing at Kyo.

"Who…ME?!" Kyo said as if he were surprised.

Hatori looked at the stamped 'K' on Yuki's face and the stamp in Kyo's hand with a K on it that he was not attempting to hide at all.

"Kyo, if you stamp anyone else then I'm going to confiscate that." Hatori said.

"He stamped my game too!" Yuki added.

"The only thing you can stamp is paper." Hatori said.

"WHAT?!" yelled Kyo.  "THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!"

"Either that or nothing at all." Hatori said.

Kyo was about to rant and rave about not being able to stamp anything except paper, but he decided that he'd first see if he enjoyed it and THEN rant about it because if he ranted about it and then enjoyed it then he'd look foolish and he knows from past experiences.

So he went over to the craft paper and looked at Haru who had a stack of paper next to him.  He was also drawing a 'picture'.  Think back to the last time you babysat a kid.  Now think of the picture the kid drew you.  That's Haru's picture.  Pretty bad, huh?

"Haru, I need paper." Kyo said.

"It's mine." Said Haru as he took the stack and put it under his picture that he was currently drawing and then continued coloring.

"Give me at least MOST of it." Said Kyo.  "You're only coloring.  I need it for important things."

"No." Haru said as he continued coloring.

"Then give me half of it." Said Kyo.  "Or a little more than half of it."

"It's ALL mine." Haru said.

"It's not ALL yours!" Kyo argued.

"I bought it with my own money." Haru retorted.

"No you didn't!" Kyo said, stomping his foot.

"Yes I did." Haru said, not even bothering to look up at Kyo anymore.

"Haru, I'm older and bigger than you and I could beat you up easily!" Kyo threatened.

"You still wouldn't have paper." Haru said as if that was clever.

"THAT'S IT!!!" yelled Kyo as he stamped Haru's picture.

Haru gasped and dropped his crayon and threw his hands over his mouth.  Kyo found that to be satisfying so he stamped it again and Haru gasped again.

"Kyo, stop picking on Haru." Said Shigure as if he cared at all.

"He RUINED my picture." Said Haru who was still in shock.

"Get over it Haru." Shigure insisted.  "It's not like your picture was anything except scribbles anyway."

"FINALLY someone's actually on my side!" Kyo said.

"And Kyo, don't do that again." Shigure said.

"What if I WANNA?" Kyo asked as he stamped Haru's picture again.  Haru gasped again.

"Kyo, if you do that again then I'm going to take that stamp away." Shigure threatened.

Kyo decided that he wanted to test Shigure so he stamped Haru's picture again and Haru gasped again.

Shigure paused.  "ONE more time, Kyo!" he said.  "I'm not kidding!"

"Stamp!" said Kyo as he stamped Haru's picture again.  Haru wasn't exactly doing anything about it.  He was just gasping.

"Don't make me come over there, Kyo." Said Shigure.

"I DARE you!" said Kyo as he stamped Haru's picture two more times.  Haru gasped two more times.

"Kyo, just go away." Shigure said.

"Make me." Said Kyo, sitting down at the table and taking the paper away from Haru.  "I just want to make my own picture."  And he started stamping one K on every single piece of paper.

"He's wasting all of my paper!" Haru whined.

"Kyo, stop wasting all of Haru's paper." Said Shigure.

"It's not ONLY his." Said Kyo.

"Actually it is." Shigure answered.

"I don't see his name on it." Kyo said.  "MY name's on it…to some extent."

"Well…I guess you have a point." Said Shigure with a shrug.

"But I still want to color!" Haru cried as he looked as though he would burst into tears at any minute.

"Give Haru some paper." Shigure instructed.

"Fine." Said Kyo, giving Haru one piece of paper that he had already stamped.  "Play with that."

"But it has a K on it!" Haru complained.

"Use the back." Kyo replied.

"I don't want to!" Haru yelled.  "The front is better!"

"They're the same!" Kyo pointed out.

"No they're not!" Haru said.

"Fine…I stamped the back." Kyo said, flipping the paper upside down.  "The clean side is the front."

"You just made that up!" Haru yelled.

"Kyo, give him a clean piece of paper before he turns into Black Haru." Shigure said.

"Bring him on!" laughed Kyo.  "I can beat him up whether he's black or white!"

"Speaking of black and white, I finished your bracelet, Haru!" said Tohru since she was still sitting there.

Haru looked at the bracelet and then at Tohru.  "I want to play with the beads too." He said, moving over closer next to her.

"SURE!!!" Tohru said.  "There's plenty for everyone to play with the beads!"

"But don't you want any paper?!" Kyo yelled, slamming his hand on the table.

"I don't need paper to play with beads." Said Haru who began stacking the beads up like a castle.

"Um…Haru?" said Tohru.  "I think you're missing the point…"

"No I'm not." Haru replied.

"You're supposed to put them on the string!" Tohru explained.

"Not ME." Said Haru.

"Okay!" said Tohru since as long as she was making other people happy, SHE was happy!

"GO BARBIE GO!!!" cheered Momiji as Wheelchair Olympic Barbie flew by at the speed of light, followed by Momiji who was merely running at the speed of sound.

"Okay guys!" said Ayame as he slammed his game down on the ground in front of Hatori, Kagura and Yuki who were all just sitting in a circle not saying anything.  "We're all going to play Pretty Pretty Princess and see who is the prettiest princess of us all!"

"I'll just watch." Said Hatori.

"No, no, no." said Ayame.  "We need FOUR people to play.  You can be pink.  I'll be light blue, Yuki can be yellow and Kagura can be purple."

"I wanna be pink!!" whined Kagura.

"And I want to be light blue!!" complained Yuki.

"I'd rather not play." Hatori said.

"All right!" said Ayame.  "It's my game so I'm going first."

"HURRAY FOR BARBIE!!!  YOU WON AGAIN!!!" screeched Momiji again as he ran back over towards the craft table since he's our transition man so we don't have to uncreatively write MEANWHILE!!!

"I'm out of paper!" Kyo said.

"You used ALL that paper just stamping a K on all of them?" Shigure said with a raised eyebrow."

"Yes." Said Kyo.  "Get me more."

"Maybe if you asked nicely." Shigure said.

"PLEASE." Kyo said in the most sarcastic tone he could produce.

"We don't have anymore paper." Shigure answered.

"WHAT?!" yelled Kyo.  "YOU MADE ME ASK NICELY FOR NO REASON?!"

"Yup." Shigure said, almost feeling satisfied with himself.  "Why don't you play with beads?"  And then he got up to make himself some Joe for no reason but there really is a reason but you'll find out later.

Meanwhile, Momiji was still playing his Wheelchair Olympic Barbie!!

"FASTER BARBIE, THEY'RE GAINING ON YOU!!!" Momiji screamed.

"Oh NO Hatori!" gasped Ayame, slapping his cheeks.  "You got the BLACK RING!!  And all you needed was the crown and you would have won!!"

Hatori tried to look as though he didn't care as he did his best to wedge the horrible black plastic ring that's about four inches tall onto his pinky finger.  Of course, he DID care.  He was getting into the game and now he needed to prove to everyone that he was the prettiest princess but how was he going to do such a thing if he had the Black Ring?!  Oh hot diggity dog!!  I'm a poet and I don't even know it!!!

"It's too bad too…" said Ayame who had only the light blue necklace and the ring.  "The Black Ring was really starting to suit you, Yuki."

"No it wasn't!" Yuki argued.  All Yuki had was the yellow necklace!!

"I wanna wear this jewelry all day!" Kagura declared as she played with the little clip on purple earrings and gazed into the beautiful ring.

"You CAN'T!!" Ayame yelled.  "It's MINE!!  Now, anyway, since I am the only one who hasn't got the Black Ring yet, I automatically get a piece of jewelry!"

"That's not true." Said Hatori as he looked through the instruction booklet.

"Yes it is!" Ayame lied, snatching the booklet away.

"Good thing I have a photographic memory." Hatori said.

"You probably think you're SO funny." Said Ayame with a scoff.  "Fine, I'll play by your stupid rules just so you won't get upset."

"Who's upset?" Hatori said, raising an eyebrow.

"YOU'VE BEEN TRAINING YOUR WHOLE LIFE FOR THIS!!!!" screamed Momiji as he ran by but Ayame grabbed him by the shirt and stopped his pointless frolicking.

"That's enough." He said.  "It was okay at first but now it's getting obnoxious."

"But Wheelchair Olympic Barbie must win the Olympics!!" Momiji HOLL-ered.

"She's already won it a million times." Said Kagura.

"She needs my mental support!" Momiji complained, trying to get free of Ayame's grip.

"She's a doll." Ayame reminded him.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" Momiji cried in his horrible dub voice.  "Ayame is being mean to me!"

"Ayame, just leave him alone." Sighed Hatori.  He secretly just wanted to get back to the game but we know Hatori and he wasn't about to admit that he was actually having fun!!

"OH!!" yelled Momiji, not being his horrible dub voice anymore.  "I didn't notice that you were playing Pretty Pretty Princess!!  Can I play?!"

"Well…sure." Said Ayame.  "Hatori, you don't have to play anymore."

Hatori paused for a second.  "I, Hatori Souma, finish everything I start." He said finally.

"Oh." Said Ayame.  "I guess you're right!  Momiji, you'll have to either wait or go away."

"Okay!" said Momiji.  "I'll just play with Wheelchair Olympic Barbie until you finish this game!"

"No, you can't play with Wheelchair Olympic Barbie." Said Ayame.

"What can I do until you're done then?!" Momiji demanded.

"It's not a long game." Ayame answered.  "You can just watch us play."

"OKAY!!!" said Momiji.  "Can I wear all the jewelry that you haven't gotten yet?"

"No!" said Ayame.  "It must stay in the jewelry pot!"

"PLEASE?!" begged Momiji.

"Ayame, it was your turn." Said Hatori.

"ALL RIGHT!" said Ayame, spinning the spinner and moving his piece only, to his dismay, TO LAND ON THE BLACK RING!!!  "ARGH!!!  This Black Ring doesn't match all my light blue!"

Hatori would have chuckled cruelly at Ayame's expense if that was in his character but he only did it in his head as he handed Ayame the Black Ring and felt as though he had accomplished something just by seeing the expression on Ayame's face.

"MY turn!" said Yuki.  In his turn, he accumulated the BRACELET!!  YAY!!

And then Kagura went!!  She had an entirely unfruitful turn and didn't get any new pieces of jewelry.

And then it was Hatori's turn!  Man, if you could see him perspiring in anticipation of getting that crown!  All he needed was a TWO and he'd get that crown!  And THEN he could proudly say that HE was the prettiest of ALL the princesses!!

At that exact thought, Hatori stopped moving his hand towards the spinner.

"What is it, Hatori?" asked Ayame.

"Do I really want to be known as the prettiest of all the princesses?" Hatori asked himself more than anyone else.  "This could come back to haunt me."

"Don't worry, I'll only tell girlfriends who I DON'T like." Said Ayame.

"What are you talking about?" Hatori asked.  "You're trying just as hard… if not HARDER to be the prettiest princess."

"But I deserve to be…wait…did you just say that you were trying hard?" Ayame gasped. 

"Um…no?" Hatori said.  "I said you were trying harder than me."

"But you said first that you were trying hard to be the prettiest princess!!" laughed Ayame.  "I'll never let you live this down!!  I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of you with those pink earrings on!"

"I HAVE A CAMERA!!!" said Shigure who popped up behind Ayame and snapped a picture of Hatori.

It was a disposable camera too so they wouldn't get these pictures developed for a while but BOY would they laugh once they got them developed!  Well, Shigure and Ayame would laugh.  Hatori wouldn't.  Even if he had laughed once before in his life, he wouldn't laugh at that because it was a HORRIBLE cruel trick to play on him!!

So, figuring that he couldn't do anything about it now, he calmly took all the jewelry off and set it down in the jewelry pot.  "You can take over, Momiji." He said.

"YAY!!" cheered Momiji.

"I can't wait to get these developed!" laughed Shigure.

"I'll take that." Said Hatori, yoinking the camera out of Shigure's hand.

"Oh that's okay." Said Shigure.  "I'll just take it back when you're not looking."

"Not if I destroy it." Hatori said.

"NO!" yelled Shigure.  "You can't destroy THAT camera!  There were other pictures used up before I just took that one and I don't know what they are and I just want to see!"

"You mean you don't know what's on your camera?" Hatori asked.

"No, that's the weird part!" Shigure replied.  "I just can't remember for some reason!  I've searched all my memory files but I can't find anything and…!"

Suddenly, Shigure stopped and started pondering and scratching his chin.

"Say…" he started.  "I recall you telling me that you erased our memories for some reason… is there a picture on that camera that explains why you would do such a thing?"

"You erased our memories?!" Ayame yelled, looking up from the game he had already gotten engaged in with Yuki, Kagura and Momiji.

"No, why would you say something like that?" Hatori asked, pocketing the camera.

"Oh I don't know, Hatori." Said Shigure.  "I can never tell with YOU anymore!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hatori asked.

"I'm going to write about this in my diary." Said Shigure.  "That way, even if you erase my memory AND destroy that camera, I'll be able to look back on it in my new diary.  I'll even write a note to myself that tells my future self that if I don't remember this particular event then I should go and speak to you about erasing your friend's memories!!"

"Then I'll destroy the diary too." Hatori said plainly.

"Is NOTHING sacred?" Shigure asked, grabbing his diary and opening the pages and then gasping dramatically and nearly fainting.  "LOOK at this!" he yelled, showing everyone a page of his diary that had a big K on it.  He flipped through the diary to see that there was a K on every single page.  "WHO could have done this?!"

"Hm…it could have been Kyo or Kagura." Ayame deducted.  "And Kagura was playing Pretty Pretty Princess with us and let's think…who's the one with the brand new K stamp?"

"I KNOW that." Said Shigure.  "I was being sarcastic."

"Why do you keep a diary anyway?" asked Yuki.  "Only GIRLS do that."

"I have many diaries, Yukum." Said Shigure.  "But this one was special because it was new.  Hatori, punish Kyo!"

"Why do I have to?" Hatori asked.

"Because you've already established the bad guy image." Shigure replied.

"Oh and you've established the good guy image?" Hatori pointed out.

"Hey!" yelled Kyo.  "I'm innocent until proven guilty!!"

"Kyo, it was OBVIOUSLY you." Said Shigure.

"Ask Tohru and Haru!  They were watching me the whole time!" Kyo said.

"He did it." Said Haru.

"Don't believe anything HARU says!" said Kyo.  "Has he EVER told the truth?!"

"Well, Tohru?" asked Shigure.

"I didn't see!" Tohru said.  "I was to busy with my beads."

"Akito was there!" said Kyo but then he decided against it.  "SOMEONE had to have been looking!  I didn't do it!  Ask anybody!"

"We were over here, Kyo." Said Hatori.

"Well I didn't do it!" Kyo said.

"You are SO obviously lying!!!" yelled Shigure.  "Good diaries are hard to come by!!"

"Shigure, this cost $4.99." Hatori said, looking at the price tag that was still on the back.

"But I looked long and hard for it." Shigure said, hanging his head low.

"Well, Kyo, you've vandalized a lot of things." Said Hatori.  "So I'm going to take your stamp away and you're going to have to sit on timeout for a little while."

"But I didn't do anything!!" yelled Kyo.  "I wasn't even HOLDING my stamp!  I was playing with beads!  See?  I made this!"  He showed them part of a bracelet that he had been working on.

"A LIKELY story." Said Yuki who wanted in on the tormenting.  "I SAW him do it, Shigure.  And he enjoyed it."

"How DARE you!!" Shigure yelled at Kyo.

"I saw him NOT do it!!" Kagura said.

"You're just saying that because you love him." Shigure said.

"Well…Yuki just said that because he hates him." Kagura pointed out.

"No!" Yuki said, sounding offended.  "That is NOT true, Shigure."

"Actually…now that I think about it…I think I saw YUKI do it." Said Ayame.

"Ayame, shut up." Said Shigure.  "This is SERIOUS!"

"Wait…it was Momiji since he wasn't REALLY doing anything." Ayame said, slamming his fist into his palm.

"Ayame…" said Hatori.

"Then again…I might have spotted Haru performing the deed out of the corner of my eye…" Ayame continued.

"Ayame, stop lying." Hatori commanded.

"Actually, the last one was true." Ayame confessed.

"Haru, is this true?" Hatori sighed, figuring that Ayame was still lying but he might as well ask anyway.

"Yes." Haru answered.

"Whatever." Said everyone.

"I did it." Haru repeated.

"Sure you did, Haru." Said everyone else.

"Haru, did you steal Momiji's Wheelchair Olympic Barbie?" Hatori asked, tricking Haru into lying so he could prove that Haru's just a chronic liar.  "Because we can't find it anywhere and someone said that you were playing with it last."

"Hm…yeah." Said Haru.  "Me and Wheelchair Olympic Barbie were going for the gold."

Everyone stopped.

"Okay, so punish Kyo." Whined Shigure.

"No, I really did stamp every page in Shigure's diary with Kyo's stamp." Haru said, pulling the K stamp out of his pocket.  "Except for the third to last page."

Everyone stopped again.  Shigure flipped to the third to last page to see that…GASP!!  IT WASN'T STAMPED!!!

"WHY would you do that, Haru?" Shigure asked.

"I wanted to get Kyo back for stamping my picture." Haru answered.

"But I'M the one whose suffering!" whined Shigure.

"Obviously he just wanted to get Kyo in trouble." Hatori said.  "The only question is, if he wanted to do such a thing, why would he go and admit to performing the deed a minute later?"

"Hatori, this is HARU we're talking about." Said Ayame.

"I wasn't trying to get Kyo in trouble." Haru said.  "I was just using his stamp without his permission."

"WHAT?!" yelled Kyo.

"Well…we should just punish Kyo anyway." Shigure said.  "Since it was his stamp and Haru obviously doesn't have any brain capacity so there's no way he knew what he was doing."

"THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!" yelled Kyo.

"I do too have a brain." Said Haru.

"Of course you do, Haru." Said Ayame.  "You just choose not to use it."

"You guys…" Hatori said, shaking his head.

"What is it Hatori?" asked Shigure.  "What are you frustrated about?"

"Well, I was just hoping that maybe we could avoid confrontations since we're leaving tomorrow and all." Hatori replied.

"WHAT?!" yelled everyone.  "SINCE WHEN?!"

"Since I decided it." Hatori said.  "I am out of clothes and this whole vacation has been the opposite of enjoyable and I just wish that I could erase my OWN memory so I wouldn't have to remember this."

"Ouch." Said Ayame with a sniffle.  "You cut me real deep just now, Hatori."

"How about all the kids go OUTSIDE to play since the day is nice and they don't need to be inside?" Hatori suggested opening the front door and booting them all out into the front yard.


	12. The Year of the Turtle and the Wrath of ...

"Hatori…" groaned Ayame.  "If the kids go outside, then we do too, right?"

"That's how it's supposed to work." Sighed Hatori.

"But is that how it has to work THIS time?" asked Shigure.  "I mean, chances are, nothing will happen!"

"What are you talking about, Shigure?" asked Hatori.  "Chances are, something WILL happen."

"Whatever!" Shigure laughed.  "This is the last day, let them run loose!"

Usually Hatori is pretty good at avoided peer pressure but today, he was feeling easily convinced and let Shigure talk him into not going outside!  OH THE HUMANITY OF IT ALL!

(Insert Momiji playing with Wheelchair Olympic Barbie here.)

AKA MEANWHILE!!!

"Aw man…" whined Kyo.  "Why did Akito have to come out to play too?"

Everyone stared at Akito who lied face down on the ground surrounded by many flowers.

"The more, the merrier!" Tohru exclaimed.

"Well, what can we do with him?" asked Kagura.

"I've got an idea!" said Momiji as he ran into the garage for a moment.  Everyone waited for him to return while talking about the sky, the New England Patriots and the chucking behaviors of woodchucks.

Momiji came out a little later pushing a baby carriage.  Why the Soumas had a baby carriage at this random Souma cottage is beyond me but I guess all Souma parents needed to put their small Souma babies SOMEWHERE.

"We'll put him in this!" Momiji sang.  (He's good at singing.  He even made up his own song!)

Everyone agreed to Momiji's little idea (because they hadn't even thought about the fact that someone needed to push him) and worked together to lift him into the carriage.  Well, Kagura didn't because she can't exactly lift someone of the opposite gender who is not one of the eleven other Jyuunishi members or Kyo.

Akito leaned back and smugly stared at everyone as if DARING them to NOT push him.

"Um…someone push him to wherever we end up wanting to go…" said Yuki as he nervously stared at Akito who smiled creepily and licked his lips.

"I'M not doing it." Said Kyo as he turned around and crossed his arms.

"I'LL do it!" Tohru said happily.

"You can't do it!" Kyo said as if he were offended.  "You're too WEAK to push Akito!"

"It's okay, Kyo!" Tohru said as she got behind the carriage and grabbed onto both handles.  The carriage was taller that she was.  

"See!" Kyo yelled.  "You CAN'T!"

"I haven't even tried yet!" Tohru laughed.

"FINE!!" Kyo yelled as he got behind the carriage as well and took hold of one of the handles.  "I'll do it!  But only because it annoys me to see you try so hard for no reason!"

"I'll help you!" Tohru said pushing on the other handle.  Kyo sighed. 

"Fine…" he said.

"I'LL HELP TOO!!" Kagura said as she dove on top of Kyo and practically took his handle away.  "I couldn't be the mother of your children in the future if I couldn't push a baby carriage!"

"How nice!" Tohru said happily as the two girls started pushing the carriage together leaving Kyo to eventually let go.

"I want to ride in the carriage." Said Haru as he looked enviously at Akito.

"We can't push BOTH of you!" Kagura admitted.

"Sure we can!" said Tohru.  

"Where are we going anyway?" asked Yuki.

"Let's go to the pond and catch frogs!" Momiji shrieked out of nowhere.  "They're calling to me!"

"I didn't know there was a pond anywhere." Said Yuki.

"It's through the bushes!" Momiji said excitedly and he ran into a pack of bushes.  "I found it when we were playing hide-and-go-seek!"

"We can't push the carriage through there!" Kagura cried.

"My mother always says that we can do ANYTHING if we just be ourselves!" Tohru said proudly.  "Although, I could have been mixing two things up just then…"

Tohru and Kagura watched as everyone entered the bushes and then they tried with all their might but they couldn't get Akito through the bushes.  So they just left him there and told him not to go anywhere.

MEANWHILE!!

"It's awfully quiet…" Ayame said suspiciously.  "Am I the only responsible one that cares about the well-being of the children?  My poor baby brother could be being eaten alive by a snake!" Then he paused.  "Not that I'D eat him alive but a REAL snake would."

"I swear Ayame, I wasn't even thinking that." Said Shigure.

"Oh Gure-san, I love you!" Said Ayame.

"AYA!!" Shigure yelled dramatically.  "You know I could never think poorly of you!!"

"TE AMO!!" Ayame said with his arm outstretched.

"Y TU TAMBIEN!" Shigure copied.  The two of them met in the middle, smiled deviously and then straightened up and gave each other thumbs up.

"YOSH!!" they said together.

"Why, oh why do I hang out with these two?" Hatori asked himself.

MEANWHILE!!

"YAY!!" Momiji cheered as he emerged from the bushes to see the pond he had been searching for.  Almost immediately, he jumped into it as if it weren't a disgusting, algae-infected pond that had no distinguishable color and a strong odor.  "Where are you, frogs?"

"I'll help you find some!" Tohru said as she took her shoes off and walked into the water/mud to where Momiji was.

"Me too!" Kagura announced as she joined them without even taking off her shoes.

"Do I, or do I not want to go in the mud?" Yuki asked himself.  He thought for about a minute before deciding that he DID want to go in the mud so he took his shoes off and joined the group in the mud.

"I am SO wearing all white." Said Haru as he looked down at his clothes.  Then he shrugged and jumped right in.

Kyo decided that there was no way in heck he would be going in the mud.  (Its 'heck' instead of 'hell' because Kyo is a small child and his mind is not yet corrupted by these sort of swears.)  I mean, have YOU ever seen a cat willingly go in a pond let alone a MUDDY pond?!  WILLINGLY?!  WILLINGLY?!?!

"I FOUND ONE!!" Kagura announced.  "HEY!!  IT'S A TURTLE!!"

She skillfully grabbed the turtle and lifted it up.

"AHHHHHH!!!" she screamed as she tossed the turtle onto the shore near where Kyo was just sitting.  "IT'S GOT TWO HEADS!!"

Kyo, being the curious little devil he is, (Curiosity killed the cat!!  GET IT?!  HAW HAW HAW!!  Aw man, I love puns) went over to the turtle and leaned over it for a good look.

"IT DOES!!" he yelled.  "IT'S A TWO-HEADED TURTLE!!"

Every single child wading around in the pond quickly ran to the edge where the turtle.

"EWWW!!" Tohru shrieked as she backed away from the turtle.

"Whoa!" Yuki said as he tried too hard to be a boy even though every other aspect of his being told him that he was a girl when he was actually a boy but he was a boy who really should have just been a girl.

"EWWW!!" Momiji cried because he is another one of those boys that really should have been a girl but Momiji would have LIKED it that way.

"Okay…" said Haru.  "So what?"

"I found it!" Kagura announced proudly.

"Let's bring it back!" Kyo said as he poked it with a stick.  "I'm not carrying it though."

"I wanted to carry it anyway!" said Kagura as she grabbed it and it squirmed around like a crazy turtle who wanted to get free from the grasp of a small child.

"Let's go show it to Hatori, Shigure and Ayame!" said Momiji.

"YEAH!!!" cheered everyone else as they got out of the mud (with the exception of Kyo who wasn't in the mud in the first place) on their way back.  Of course, since Kagura was one of the designated Akito pushers, she had to let Haru push it since he claimed that he had asked to.  They pushed open the door and walked in, tracking mud all over the house until they finally came to the bottom of the ladder that led to the loft.

"WE FOUND A TWO HEADED TURTLE!!!" Kyo yelled up the stairs.

"I FOUND IT!!!" Kagura corrected him but still yelling up the stairs.

"Hey, what are you guys doing up there?!" demanded Yuki.

"Playing cards." Ayame answered, poking his head out so they could see him.

"Well come down and see our turtle!!" Momiji commanded.

"Oh my!" said Ayame, slapping his cheeks.  "Just look at the horrid mess you children have made!"  At the sound of this statement, Hatori poked his head out as well to see what was going on.  He took one look at all the mud that was on the floor and shook his head in disappointment.

"I didn't make a mess!" said Kyo.  "I'm still clean!"

So all the older people came down the stairs.  "All right, you all have to take a bath." Said Shigure, feeling all mature.

"Did you forget?" Hatori asked.  "Our shower was stolen."

"Yeah but what about the BATH?" Shigure said.

"Don't be stupid." Hatori said.

"Look at our turtle!" said Kagura.

"It's very nice." Said Ayame.

"It has two heads!" Kagura added.

"Wow!" said Ayame.  "That's almost as freakish as Yuki!"

"HEY!!!" yelled Yuki.

"Oh my!" said Tohru suddenly.  "Is that turtle one of the Jyuunishi?!"

Everyone slowly turned their heads and stared at Tohru as if she was the stupidest person in the entire world.  Actually, she was being rather stupid since there is no turtle in the Zodiac let alone a two headed one which just got me thinking…if you were a Siamese twin and only ONE of you was the Jyuunishi animal…what would happen?!?!  WHAT WOULD THE DANCE LOOK LIKE?!?!

"No Tohru, this is not one of the Jyuunishi." Said Shigure, patting her on the head.

"I think there should be a turtle!" said Tohru.  "From now on, instead of being a dog OR a cat, I'm going to be the turtle!"

Everyone shook their heads but didn't make fun of Tohru because they love her.

"I wanna be a turtle too." Said Haru.  "Instead of a stupid rat."

"Haru, you're a cow." Hatori said.

"And rats aren't stupid!!" yelled Yuki.

"No, I'm a rat." Haru insisted.

"Okay Haru, you're a rat." Hatori said, rolling his eyes.

"I was born in 1984…that's the year of the rat." Haru explained.

Everyone was about to yell at Haru and tell him that he was a dirty rotten stinking liar but then they stopped and actually considered what he had just said.  1984…IS the year of the rat!!  AWK!!!

"But…you're the cow." Ayame said.

"But I'm a rat too." Haru replied.

"Wow, Haru actually made sense just now." Shigure said.  "In a strange twisted, weird sort of way."

"Yeah but from now on, just be a cow." Said Ayame since he was still confused.

"I'm a turtle from now on though." Haru decided.

"BUT THERE IS NO YEAR OF THE TURTLE!!!" yelled Kyo.  "If there's no year of the cat then there's no year of the turtle!!"

"You don't have to get all passionate about it." Said Shigure.

"I refuse to accept this turtle!" Kyo yelled, stomping his foot.

"It doesn't matter, you're not one of the Jyuunishi." Said Ayame.

"Neither is this turtle!" Kyo argued.

"We never said it was!" yelled everyone.

"HARU AND TOHRU DID!!!!" Kyo yelled back.

"AND YOU LISTENED TO THEM?!?!" yelled everyone except for Haru, Tohru and Kyo.

"YES!!!!!" Kyo HOLL-ered.

"There's still the problem that you're all still covered in mud." Said Hatori literally out of nowhere.

"I'M not." Said Kyo.

"Let's just take baths in the lake!" said Momiji as he grabbed Wheelchair Swimming Olympic Barbie and was wearing a matching bathing suit with hers.

"WE GET TO GO SWIMMING AGAIN!!!" cheered all the small children.  "HURRAY!!!"  And then they ran outside and jumped in the water.  HURRAY!!!  

"I'm not going outside." Said Kyo.

"Hey, talking to the narrator is MY job." Said Shigure.

"I thought we banished that." Hatori said, looking annoyed.

"No." said Shigure.  "No we really didn't."

"I recall banishing it." Hatori continued.

"Since when are you the king of the world?" Shigure asked.

"I'm the most mature one here." Hatori said flatly.

"What?!" Shigure said, looking offended.  "How can you say something like that?!"

"Shigure…are you serious?  Kyo is more mature than you."

"All right!  I'm mature!" cheered Kyo.

"No, the point is that you're NOT." Said Ayame.

"Don't even talk Ayame, you're worse than Shigure." Hatori added.

"That is SO the opposite of the truth." Said Ayame.  "Talk to the hand, Hatori, cause the face don't care."

"Whatever." Said Hatori since he didn't really care either.

"Kyo, go outside before I slaughter you!!" yelled Shigure randomly.

"NEVER!!!" yelled Kyo.

"Then go outside before Hatori puts you in a fishbowl." Shigure said.

"He'll never get me alive!!" Kyo declared.

Then they stood there for a minute.

"That was your cue to run off in fear." Said Shigure.

"No." said Kyo.  "I'm one of you guys now since I'm the SECOND most mature one here!"

"Then you can help us clean up the mud." Hatori said, trying to use reverse psychology on him.

"WHAT?!" yelled Ayame.  "I don't wanna!!!"

"I don't feel like it either." Said Shigure.

"I'LL help!!" Kyo said, seizing his opportunity to prove how mature he was.

Hatori knew that Kyo would probably be counterproductive but he wasn't about to turn down making a fool out of Shigure and Ayame.  So Kyo and Hatori started cleaning up the mud and Ayame was reading his beloved Vogue magazine and Shigure was watching them out of the corner of his eye, trying not to watch.

"FINE!!!" yelled Shigure.  "I'll help!!!"  And he got up sighing all in an exasperated tone as if Hatori and Kyo had been BEGGING him to help them clean up the mud and they just wouldn't have been able to do it without him.

"Um…Ayame, go outside and watch the kids." Said Hatori who had just realized that there were a bunch of small children outside playing in the water.

"I'm READING." Said Ayame.

"You've read that a thousand times." Hatori pointed out.

"I'll watch them!" Kyo said, looking excited.

"That's all right." Sighed Hatori.  "I'LL just go out and do it."

"I'll help!" Kyo volunteered.

"Why are you being so cooperative?" Hatori asked.

"Because I'm mature." Kyo answered.

"Fine." Said Hatori.  "It's better than you NOT being mature."  So Hatori and Kyo went outside where all the children were playing civilly.

"I'll watch everyone who's playing over here." Kyo said.

"You do that." Hatori said.

Meanwhile, in the water, everyone was playing with George and Hathroom, the two-headed turtles.  George was the head on the left and Hathroom was the head on the right but they kept switching so it doesn't even matter.

"I like George better than Hathroom." Said Momiji.

"Hathroom rules." Said Yuki.

"What does Hathroom mean?" asked Haru.

"It…it…IT RHYMES WITH BATHROOM!!!" yelled Kagura as all the children burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.

"That is SO immature." Said Kyo as he stood in front of all the kids on a giant rock with his arms crossed.

"Oh and YOU'RE mature?" asked Yuki.

"As a matter of fact, I am." Said Kyo proudly.  Then he scoffed at Yuki.  "You've got dirt on your face."

"DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT!!" Yuki yelled.  (Whoa…another role reversal going on here!) 

"So childish…" said Kyo with a fake yawn.  

"WHAT?!" Yuki HOLL-ered.  The he picked up a big clod of mud from the bottom of the lake.  "Well…YOU'VE got dirt all over you!"

And with that, Yuki smeared mud all over Kyo's face, neck and chest.  A dark essence floated around Kyo as his eyes glowed and resembled the angry fiery pits of heck!  (What is this story rated, PG?  I have to STICK with that rating!  I can't go around saying 'hell' can I?  What?  I just did?  NOW LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!!)

"I TRY to be mature!" he yelled.  "I try to be nice and this is what you do?!  DIE RAT!!"

Then he jumped down from his perch atop the rock and toward Yuki who leisurely stepped to the side.  Kyo fell right into the lake with a KER-SPLOOSH!!  He stood up a minute later sopping wet and HOPPING MAD!!

But…his head hurt too because he had just done something similar to diving in knee-deep water.  Actually, he DID do just that!  HAW HAW HAW!!  But he survived because he is a fictional character and it's not like this story is all that realistic anyway.

So Kyo burst out crying like DUB Baby Kyo.  Actually, I don't know what dub Baby Kyo sounds like so we'll just have him cry like regular Baby Kyo.  Of course, since he's Kyo and not Momiji, he didn't just SIT there and wait for some adult to come and scold the one who made him cry.  He ran off somewhere but even I, the narrator, don't know where!

Hatori was going to the bathroom during this time even though he should know better than to leave all the children by themselves.  Then again, Kyo was watching them…

Then again…KYO was watched them!!

Hatori finished his business quickly, flushed the toilet, sufficiently washed his hands, turned the bathroom light off and ran outside where he took a quick head count of the kids to find that ONE WAS MISSING!!  Well, he didn't really need to count; he could have just glanced among the kids looking for Kyo.  It's not like he's hard to find because he has vivid orange hair.

Hatori let out a very frustrated sigh.  He saw Yuki walking around triumphantly so he didn't even have to ask what happened.

Suddenly, Ayame walked out.  

"How's it going?" Ayame asked almost as if he KNEW that something bad had happened and he wanted Hatori to admit his fault.

"Ayame, why don't you and Shigure go and look for Kyo?" Said Hatori as he didn't even look at Ayame.

"You know, Hatori…" said Ayame with a look of disgust on his face.  "The next time we do something like this, I'm going to have to tell everyone's parents how irresponsible you are so that maybe they'll think twice before trusting the care of their children in your hands."

If Hatori had been an unstable man, he would have turned around and erased Ayame's memory JUST so that Ayame could be sent hurtling backwards only to potentially break his spine.

"It's starting to get dark." Said Hatori after a few hoot breaths but still through clenched teeth.  (Poor Hatori.  It's come to this.)  "Get Shigure and the two of you can go and find Kyo."

"Why is it that when you mess up, you have me to bail you out?" Ayame asked.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer." Said Hatori as he opened the door and walked inside.

Shigure was sitting at a table trying to get the purple 'Pretty Pretty Princess' earring on his left ear.  Upon seeing Hatori enter followed closely by Ayame, he ripped it off and started pretending as though we was writing in his diary which he SO obviously was not doing.

"Shigure, you and Ayame are needed to go find Kyo." Said Hatori.

"I am NOT a bloodhound!" Shigure declared.  Hatori stared at him for a minute.

"Nobody said you were." He said finally.  Shigure was about to defend his foolish outburst but Hatori looked really scary and he didn't want to be subject to Hatori's wrath.  No one had ever seen the wrath of Hatori because it's very rare that it should be called forth but many assume that it is the most horrible wrath in the world.

**Word of advice:** Never anger a seahorse.  They rarely get mad but when they do they are malicious.

So Shigure ran out the door with his tail between his legs.  (Or that's what he WOULD have done if he had a tail or what a dog at the moment.)  Ayame simply frolicked after him.

At that moment, all of the children that were playing the lake walked back in.  They were no longer muddy but they were definitely wet.

"Take off your wet clothes before you come in." Hatori commanded them.

"EWWW!!" Tohru shrieked.  Everyone else figured that they had been seen naked plenty of times before, what's one more time?  So they stripped down right then and there.  That only made Tohru shriek louder.

"I wish Kyo were here right now!" pined Kagura.  

"You're too young to be thinking such thoughts." Said Hatori as he tossed the ground a pile of folded towels.

MEANWHILE!!

"What's this?" asked Shigure out loud as he and Ayame approached a baby carriage that was halfway in a bush.  He easily wedged the carriage from the bush and looked into it.  "IT'S AKITO!!"

"DEAR GOD!!" Ayame gasped.  "What's he doing all the way out here just being abandoned?!"

"Let's take him back to house" Said Shigure as he picked Akito up.  Ayame nodded as the two of them jogged back to the house.

"Look who we found!!" Ayame announced as he entered the house.

"That didn't take long." Said Hatori as he turned around only to see that they hadn't found Kyo.  "Akito was missing too?"

"For shame!" Ayame scolded.  "You didn't notice?"

"Did you?" started Hatori.

"Who is more important, Hatori?" asked Ayame.  "The cat?  Or the god?  You need to sort out your priorities."

"Ayame, just shut up." Said Hatori.

"I'll go find Kyo!" Tohru offered.

"Good luck!" said Shigure.

"No." said Hatori.  "You guys go back out there and find him."

Hatori wanted nothing more than to yell at both of them but he couldn't because that would be out of his character and he didn't want to go an entire story without using an explanation point and then suddenly, toward the end, just USE one.

"He's probably just on the roof or something." Said Shigure.  

Suddenly, there was a loud pounding coming from the ceiling.  Almost as if something had fell on the cabin.

"Well what do you know?" Shigure said with a chuckle.  "He IS on the roof."

"Throwing a temper tantrum I might add." Said Ayame.

The three elders stood in a circle for a minute.

"We found him, Hatori." Said Ayame.  "Now YOU have to go and get him."

Even though Hatori is somewhat of the boss of this trip and he's very stoic and not easily pushed around, he's somewhat of a pushover, don't you think?

Hatori walked outside and looked on the roof to see Kyo on the roof curled up into a ball while whining pathetically.  

"Kyo, come down." He called.  (As loud as he could muster while still having his pride.)

"Why?" asked Kyo.  "So you can put me in a fishbowl?!"

"Whatever reason you're up there has nothing to do with me so don't pretend as though it does." Said Hatori calmly.

"I lost to Yuki!" Kyo yelled.

Hatori wanted to say, 'So what else is new?' but he refrained.

"That's okay." Said Hatori.  "You can beat him next time.  When you get back home.  But not today."

"I need to beat him NOW!" Kyo declared.

"You can't always get what you want." Said Hatori.  "Now come down."

"Not until I beat that stupid rat!"

"You'll never beat him if you stay up there."

"Then I'll never come down!!"

Hatori sighed and went to the garage to fetch the ladder so that he could climb up onto the roof and get Kyo.  

MEANWHILE!!

"When Yuki and Kyo fight, I don't know WHO to cheer for!" said Ayame randomly as if he had been pondering that all day.  "Because Kyo is the cat so he just shouldn't win and Yuki well…Yuki is stupid!"

"HEY!!" Yuki yelled.  "Why are you so mean to me?!"

"Because you're so easy to pick on." Said Ayame.  Shigure chuckled cruelly and secretly pushed responsibility to the back of his mind.

Just then, Kyo and Hatori walked in and Kyo ran upstairs and dove under one of the beds in the loft.

"How'd you get him down?" asked Shigure.

"I told him the weather man said that we were expecting some rain." Hatori replied.

"What weather man?" asked Ayame.

"What should we make for dinner?" Hatori said, changing the subject since he had entirely made up the weatherman story.  ARGH!!  HATORI…LYING?!?!?!


	13. Red Berries and a Few Unexpected Guests!

"Well…" said Shigure, pulling a bowl of berries out from behind his back.  "When Ayame and I were getting Akito out of the bush, I took it upon myself to pick some berries from the bush we found him in.  I tasted them.  They're good."

"What kind of berries are they?" asked Hatori.

"Um…black berries?" Shigure said with a shrug.

"They're red." Said Ayame.

"Fine." Said Shigure.  "They're RED berries."

"Oh, all right." Said Hatori.  He didn't want to admit that he had never heard of red berries because then that would make it look like Shigure and Ayame knew more than him.  Little does he know that RED BERRIES DON'T EXIST!!!  Well…unless…they DO…but we can pretend they don't if they do.  Okay?  OKAY?!  YOU WON'T TELL ANYONE?!?!

"So we can have berries for dinner?" Shigure asked, eating more berries.

"We will have berries WITH dinner." Hatori corrected, looking in the refrigerator.  "Let's just eat this hamburger and tell Haru it's chicken."

"Or we could tell Haru that he's the chicken." Said Ayame.  "He'd probably believe us."

"What would we gain from doing that?" asked Hatori.

"Then we wouldn't have to call the hamburger chicken." Ayame explained.

"Wouldn't it just be easier to say that it's chicken as opposed to try to convince Haru that he's a chicken?" Hatori said.

"No." said Ayame.

"Whatever." Said Hatori, not wanting to be a part of this conversation anymore.  He then started making hamburger and he made it in however much time it takes to make hamburger.

He set the table all by himself and it was all pretty like with candles and silverware and cloth napkins all folded into shapes of the animal of the person who would be sitting there.  In Tohru's case, it was folded into a giant rice ball and in Akito's case…it was a…three-toed sloth!!

But…considering Hatori only bought a single package of hamburger for the ten of them, you can probably assume how big their portions were.  Don't blame Hatori!  He's most likely an only child so he only ever has to get one package but if we were to go even further, Hatori's still a teenager so his mommy probably does all the shopping anyway.  Unless he has some kind of freak childhood that we're unaware of where his parents disowned him because he's a seahorse and he's living on the streets.

SO ANYWAY, enough with tangents, let's continue.

They also had no toppings or bread or anything so all they had was a teeny little slab of meat.  But the table settings were nice and they DID have berries.

"Dinner's ready." Said Hatori as he rang a triangle.

Everyone ran over and looked around.

"Where's the rest of our food?" asked Kagura.

"Right there." Said Hatori, pointing to the berries.

"This is all we get?" complained no one in particular.

"What is this?" asked Haru.  "I hope it's not chicken or hamburger."

"Why?" asked Hatori.

"Because I hate chicken and hamburger comes from cows." Haru replied.

"Since when do you hate chicken?!" yelled a random older person.  It wasn't Hatori though.  You know why, right?  Right.  There was an exclamation point and you should know by now that Hatori does not use exclamation points.

"I always have." Haru answered.  "Call my mom if you don't believe me."

"We believe you." Said Shigure.  Then they all started eating.

"So…is this chicken or hamburger?" Haru asked.

"No." said Ayame.

"Okay." Said Haru.

"Who wants some of my berries?!" asked Shigure as he picked the bowl up and started passing it down the line of people.  Hatori took some because he wanted to be polite since he's that way and Yuki and Momiji took some because they're rodents and they like berries and nuts and things like that.  Kagura didn't because at the time, she had gotten up to use the bathroom and forgot about the berries by the time she had come back.  Kyo didn't have any because he was upstairs under the bed still.  Haru didn't take any because he was preoccupied with chewing at the moment.  Tohru didn't take any because she would have felt bad if she had taken Hatori's hamburgers AND Shigure's berries without giving them anything in return.  Ayame didn't take any because he was full by the time the bowl got to him.

"Now that it's 8:45…" started Hatori, looking at his watch.

"IS IT REALLY?!" Ayame yelled, slapping his cheeks.  "Because I looked at the clock a minute ago and saw that it was midnight so the children should DEFINITELY be in bed right now!!"

"Yeah right!" yelled Yuki.

"Shut up, Yuki." Said Ayame.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" cried Yuki like dub Momiji.

"You all can watch a movie until it's time for bed." Said Hatori as he went over the television cabinet thing that Convenient Store Bob Souma had found for them and looked through the videos that weren't the Jyuunishi dances.  "How about The Last Unicorn?"

"That's a girly movie!!!" yelled Kyo who had come downstairs at the sound of the word 'movie'.

"I wanna watch it!" said Momiji.

"SO?!" yelled everyone.

"Well…I kind of wanted to watch it too…" said Tohru.

"Oh…OKAY!!!" said everyone as they put in The Last Unicorn.  They watched it contently because they all wanted to make sure Tohru was happy until the movie was over and it was LATE!!!!  It wasn't so hard to put the children to bed at that point because they were all either asleep or mostly asleep and then the older people went upstairs.

"Why is it that we go to bed at the same time as them?" complained Ayame.

"Well, there's nothing really to do when they're asleep because we have to be quiet." Said Shigure.  "Plus, I'm tired and I don't feel very well."

"WHAT?!" yelled Ayame.  "I'm noisy when Yuki's sleeping!"

"Ayame, you're noisy all the time." Hatori pointed out.  "And I agree with Shigure this time.  You can stay up if you want, Ayame, but if you wake me up then I will have to turn you into a snake by means of Tohru and then tie you in a knot."

"Hatori!" gasped Ayame.  "I don't believe you would say something like that!"

"Then I would wait for you to turn back." Hatori continued.

"Wouldn't THAT be a sight?" said Shigure.

THE NEXT MORNING!!!

Just kidding.  It's not the next morning.

AT ABOUT 1:37 AM!!!

Everyone was awakened by an unpleasant sound.

"Someone just threw up." Said Ayame.

"Someone else go." Said Hatori.

"I can't." whined Shigure.

"It was just Yuki." Said Ayame.

"You KNOW it was him?" asked Hatori.

"Yeah." Said Ayame.  "He's been complaining to me for the past hour that his stomach has been bothering him so wouldn't it just make logical sense that it was HIM and not anyone else?"

"What?  Where was I?" asked Hatori.

"You were sleeping." Said Ayame.  "I was going to wake you up but I didn't want to be tied in a knot."

"This is different." Said Hatori.  "Now go downstairs and make sure it's okay since he's your brother."

"I SHOULDN'T have to go down because he's by brother!" Ayame argued.

"Well, I can't right now, I'm not feeling well." Said Hatori.

"Very well, just because I'm such a great guy." Ayame declared as he got up and went down the stairs.  Hatori lied up there, trying to listen to what was going on downstairs but only being able to hear Shigure moaning about his poor little tummy.  You KNOW something's wrong with Hatori when he sends Ayame to check on Yuki!!

"Hatori!" Ayame called up the stairs.  "It wasn't Yuki.  It was Momiji!"

"Fine." Said Hatori, not really knowing how else to respond to that.

There was another unpleasant sound.  "THAT was Yuki!" Ayame yelled.

"Ayame, you're making me feel worse." Said Shigure.  "I'm going to throw up myself if you don't stop that."

Just then, Ayame came back up the stairs.

"There's no way you took care of that efficiently." Said Hatori as Ayame got back in bed.

"Tohru said she wanted to help." Ayame replied.  "So I let her."

"Tohru's only seven years old." Hatori said.  "Go back down there."

"If you're so concerned, why don't YOU go down there?" demanded Ayame.

"I think I will." Said Hatori, getting up and calmly walking downstairs, past all the mayhem and into the bathroom where he…WAS SICK!!!  ARGH!!!  In other words, he vomited.  EWEE!!!!

"EWEE!!!" screamed Kagura since she was standing in the doorway.

"All right, the show's over." Said Hatori as he flushed the toilet, sufficiently washed his hands and brushed his teeth.  Of course, he said his witty comment BEFORE he brushed his teeth or else that would just be silly.

"OH MY!!!" gasped Ayame who had come downstairs to see what all the commotion was all about even though that was incredibly out of character.  "YOU can't be sick, Hatori!!"

"Why is that?" asked Hatori.

"Because Shigure is too." Ayame answered as if that kind of stuff just happened every single day.

"Well, as much as I hate to say it, Ayame, you're in charge." Said Hatori.  "I am going to bed and you have to be the one who stays up all night with Momiji and Yuki."

Ayame gasped as if he were offended.  "Yuki can die for all I care!" he declared.

"You're not serious." Said Hatori.

"MY SLEEPING BAG IS ALL DIRTY!!!" screamed Momiji from the area where all the kids were sleeping.  It was then followed by many whines and cries and even more complaints.

"Go clean Momiji's sleeping bag." Said Hatori as he walked right by Ayame and right by all the kids and made his way to the stairs.

"ME?!" Ayame yelled, appalled.  "I'm the HEALTHY one!  I don't want to be infected!"

"Ayame, I'm not interested in arguing with you right now." Said Hatori since he was extra stoic in his sickened and weakened state.

"Well I'm not interested and in cleaning up yucky smelly sleeping bags." Ayame said.  "And I'm certainly and definitely not interested in sleeping in the same room as you and Shigure since you're both all contaminated and sickly and other nasty things and to be absolutely frank, I don't want to breath the same air as anyone who has just vomited."

"Very well." Said Hatori.  "You can sleep down here with the kids."

"But Momiji and Yuki are contaminated too!!" whined Ayame.

"Then they'll come upstairs and you can sleep down here with all those who aren't contaminated." Hatori said finally.

"But then I'll never be able to go back up there!" Ayame continued.

"We're leaving tomorrow anyway, it doesn't matter." Hatori reminded him.

"FINE!!" sighed Ayame.  "But only because you two are my best friends!!"  He looked at Momiji and Yuki.  "Well…I'm not touching them."

Hatori rolled his eyes and found himself carrying Momiji and Yuki upstairs.  Momiji and Yuki shared Ayame's bed and Hatori got in his own bed.  The three of them didn't get very much sleep because of Shigure who was moaning on and on about his stomach while curled up in the fetal position in the corner of his bed.

THE NEXT MORNING!!!  (for real this time)

"RISE 'N' SHINE!!!" Ayame screamed from the top of the stairs.  All of the sickly people looked up at Ayame.

"What happened to 'not being able to come up here ever again'?" Hatori asked sarcastically.

"Well…I was going to enforce that but I realize how selfish it was and figured that I should probably be waiting on you all hand and foot!" Ayame explained.  Hatori raised an eyebrow and wondered how long that attitude would last.  "So I'll make you breakfast!"

"I'm not really hungry, Ayame…" said Hatori.  Shigure moaned from underneath his blankets.

"Well then I suppose my work is done." Said Ayame.  "I was going to serve you some huge breakfast with all the trimmings and then not do anything more but I guess that's it!"

"What would I ever do without you?" asked Hatori sarcastically.

"I don't know Hatori but without me, you certainly would have done SOMETHING irresponsible that might have really hurt the kids." Said Ayame as he went back downstairs and rounded up all the healthy children and lined them up the way a sergeant would his troops.  "All right!  With Hatori and Shigure sick, that means that rather than being one third in charge, I am now one hundred percent your ruler and master."

"Ruler and master?" asked Kyo with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes." Said Ayame.  "For the remainder of this vacation, you will treat me as you would a god.  Or a king.  Or your very own father!"

"My father's dead!" said Tohru somewhat happily for such a depressing subject.

"And my father…um...yeah…" Said Kyo. 

"Hm…" said Ayame.  He was about to think some more when suddenly the telephone rang.  Ayame frolicked over to the telephone and picked it up.  "Souma residence, this is Ayame speaking.  How may I be of service to you?"  He paused and listened to the person on the other line talk for a minute.  "You're on your way NOW?  Uh-huh…at a payphone?  No, we haven't left yet.  We intend on leaving very soon." He paused again.  "Oh so you ARE bringing them?  Why would you do that?!  You're crazy!  Well, I guess I'll see you then.  Yes, it will be LOVELY!  It WILL be like those parties, now won't it?  Ta ta!"

Then he hung up the phone.

"Who was that?" asked Kyo.

"None of your business!" Ayame sang.

"Well, it's obviously someone who's coming here." Said Kyo.  "So it WOULD be my business!"

"This only concerns Jyuunishi members." Said Ayame.

"YOU MADE THAT UP!!" Kyo yelled.

"Well, I was going to ask who it was but I guess it doesn't concern ME either." Said Tohru with a silly little laugh.

"Can you tell me?" asked Kagura.

"No, cause you'll tell Kyo." Said Ayame.

"No I won't!" Kagura said.  "Whisper it in my ear!"

"You can tell me." Said Haru.  "I definitely won't tell Kyo."

"Um…no." said Ayame.  "I meant to say that it only concerns Jyuunishi members OVER twelve."

"Then it DEFINITELY doesn't concern me!" laughed Tohru.

"Who was that on the phone?" came Hatori's voice.  He had gotten out of bed and was peering over the side of the loft.

"HATORI SOUMA!!" Ayame yelled.  "GET BACK INTO BED THIS INSTANT!!  We can't have you BEING SICK now can we?!"

"Just tell me who was…"

"NONE OF YOUR EXCUSES!!" Ayame continued.  "Now get back in bed!"

"Ayame…"

"Stop!  You're only digging yourself in deeper!" 

Hatori, like usual, wasn't about to argue more than he needed to (or at all) especially in his state of weakness so he sighed and climbed back into bed.

Ayame climbed up into the loft to make sure everyone was in bed.  He walked over to Shigure and stroked his head.

"Poor bow-wow-wog…" said Ayame wistfully.  "Get better soon Gure-san.  Last night, I was restless."

"Oh Aya…" said Shigure weakly.  "With you by my side, I am sure to make a full recovery…"

"Ayame, go downstairs." Said Hatori.

"How rude!" said Ayame.  "I come up to check on you sick people and this is how you thank me?"

"WAAAAA!!" cried Momiji in his dub voice.  (Has he cried yet in his NON-dub voice?  I don't think so actually…)  "My tummy hurts!"

"My poor sweet baby brother!" Ayame said as he lifted Yuki's sleeping head off of his pillow and caressed it.  "Get better soon!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!" Yuki cried.

"I love you too!" Ayame teased as he let go of Yuki's head and went back down the lower level like Hatori had commanded earlier.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

"THAT WAS FAST!!" Ayame said as he skipped over to the door and opened it.  "KURENO!!"

"Nanoo!" said Kureno.  Yes, the chicken is here.  And he brought Rin, Hiro, Ritsu and Kisa with him.  Sadly, Ritsu was very upset that the group had left without him so Kureno was voted to take him down.  Then he was bestowed upon with the responsibility of the three remaining Jyuunishi members as well just because.

Oh, by the way…you know at the WAY beginning I said I might be making some stuff up?  Well, here it comes.  As far as I know, the chicken has no personality.  So I'm just going to make one up for him.  It won't be TOO bad considering the fact that he is supposed to be about sixteen or seventeen in this story so maybe I'll get his personality right!  And if I don't, pretend as though it's right on target.

"Now we're one big happy family!" Ayame exclaimed.  

I assume that if Kureno weren't so gosh-darned obsessed with Akito then the Mabudachi Trio would be the Mabudachi Quartet!

"Where's Akito?" asked Kureno as he put his stuff down and Ritsu, Rin, Hiro and Kisa frolicked into the cabin after him.

"Now where IS the little sunspot?" Ayame asked himself out loud.

"You don't know where he is?!" Kureno asked frantically.  

"Well, I'm sure he's around the cabin somewhere." Said Ayame as he looked around.  Then he spotted Akito with his head hanging in the sink.  "THERE he is!"

Kureno walked over and cradled the not-so-small young child in his arms like a little baby.

"I assume FULL responsibility for him!" said Kureno.

"Oh good!" said Ayame.  "Because no one around here had assumed that position yet!"

Kureno chose to ignore that comment.

"So where are everyone else?" asked Kureno.

"Well, Shigure, Hatori, Momiji and my darling younger sibling are upstairs being all…SICK." Said Ayame.  "And Kyo, Kagura, Haru and Tohru are over in the corner playing Crocodily-oh-my."

"You're out Kyo!" Tohru laughed as she slapped her hand down on top of Kyo's.

"WHAT?!" Kyo yelled.  "We JUST started."

"And you JUST got out." Said Haru as he scooted closer to Tohru so that he could cut Kyo off.

"This game is stupid!" Kyo yelled.  "I didn't want to play it anyway!"  But he only pushed himself backwards out of the circle and didn't go anywhere.

Suddenly, Ritsu, Hiro, Kisa and Rin came over to the group that were playing hand-slapping games.

"Can we join?" Ritsu asked.  "Though I wouldn't blame you if you said no because I am SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON!!"

"SURE!!" Tohru announced.  "THE MORE THE MERRIER!!"

(Remember, we're also pretending as though they ALL know each other.)

Kisa clapped her hands and sat RIGHT down next to Tohru while nuzzling her affectionately.

Hiro felt that he would have NONE of that so he pushed the two of them apart and sat right down in between them and then stuck his tongue out at Tohru.  (How old is he?  TWO?)  

"That wasn't very nice!" Kisa complained.  "You should say you're sorry!"

"No!" Hiro said firmly as he crossed his arms.  Kisa couldn't argue with THAT logic so she gave up.

Then Kyo realized that they were starting a new game and he couldn't let HIRO take his spot so he make Hiro and Kisa move over even MORE so that he could sit down next to Tohru.  Not that that's what he WANTED or anything.  He just wanted his spot back.

Rin came over and sat right down in between Haru and Kisa so it made everyone even MORE crowded.

Just as a clarification, Rin is probably about five (we're assuming that she's just a year younger than Haru and Momiji), Kisa's three and since Hiro's a year younger than Kisa, he's probably two.  As for Ritsu…um…let's see, he's normally I don't know…twenty-one?  So we'll just say that he's eleven.  HURRAY!!!

So anyhoo!  They resumed their little game until Ritsu got Haru out.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Ritsu yelled.  "I'M SO SORRY TO HAVE GOTTEN YOU OUT FIRST!!  IF I COULD DECIDE THE ORDER, I WOULD HAVE PICKED ME FIRST BUT NOW IT IS ALL MY FAULT THAT YOU ARE OUT!!  I SHALL TAKE YOUR PLACE AS 'OUT'!!"

"Okay." Said Haru as he cut Ritsu out of the game by moving closer to Kagura.  

"I'll be in the bathroom…inflicting much deserved pain upon myself." Said Ritsu as he stood up and walked into the bathroom.  "NOOOOO!!  THE SHOWER IS MISSING!!  THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!!  OH GOMENASAI!!"

Everyone ignored him as usual.


	14. A Little Sugar For Haru and the Fondling...

"So what possessed you to come down here for a vacation with four kids under the age of twelve?" asked Ayame as he and the chicken shared a delightful cup o' tea.

Kureno smiled, pulled out his wallet and showed the large sum of money given to him by various parents.

"HEY!" Ayame said.  "I'M not getting paid and I had to watch TWICE as many kids!"

"Well, you have Shigure and Hatori." Said Kureno as he stroked Akito's head while Akito purred like a kitten.

"No offense to those two…" said Ayame.  "But I've been doing most of the work.  Plus, they're sick now."

"How long have they been sick?" asked Kureno.

"I don't know." Said Ayame.  "A while."

"So you've been watching all these kids all by yourself all this time?" Kureno demanded, in awe as he fed Akito some candy and nuzzled him more affectionately than he really should have been doing.

Meanwhile, Rin tapped Haru on the shoulder.

"Guess what I'm wearing…" she whispered in his ear.  Haru scanned Rin up and down.

"Shoes?" he said, feeling smart.

"No!" said Rin as she lifted up her shirt (that was really only a children's sized tube top anyway) to reveal what looked like a half a T-Shirt.  "I'm wearing a bra."

"Okay." Said Haru, a little confused.  Ritsu ran over to Rin and pulled her shirt down.  

"Don't do that!" he yelled.  Then he paused. "OH MY GOD!!  I TOUCHED YOU WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION!!  I'M SO SORRY!!  I SHOULD BURN!!"

"When did you come back?" asked Kyo.

"Um…a second ago when I noticed Rin was topless." Said Ritsu.

"Well, go back wherever you were and stay there!" Kyo commanded.

"OH GOMENASAI!!" Ritsu yelled as he shook Kyo around crazily.  Then he dropped Kyo on his arse and ran back into the bathroom and locked the door.

"KYO!!" Kagura and Tohru yelled at the same time as they ran to Kyo's 'injured' aid and didn't even bother to chase after Ritsu.

Haru walked over to Ayame, Akito and Kureno.

"How about a little sugar for Haru?" Haru asked.  Ayame paused for a second and then looked at the chicken who shrugged.

"Um…very well!" said Ayame as he bent over to Haru with his arms outstretched and looked as though he were going to kiss him.

Haru's eyes bugged out as he took a few steps backwards.

"Don't you want your sugar, Haru?" asked Ayame.

"Yeah…" said Haru.  "I never said I want you to hug me or kiss me!"

"Hm…" said Ayame.  "Somehow, I have reason to believe that that's what you were implying."

"I just wanted some candy!" Said Haru as he pointed to the candy that the chicken was force-feeding Akito.

"Come on, Akito, you LIKE candy!!" Kureno said as Akito made some grunting noises and moved his head around like a fool.

"I want some candy…" Haru complained.

"This is Akito's candy." The chicken replied.

"He can share." Haru decided.

"Haru, Hatori and Shigure may bow down to your Black Haru-ness but I'm telling you right now that Ayame Souma does not fear you!!" Ayame yelled, pointing at Haru who was whimpering and trying to get closer to the candy as the chicken held him back with his foot.

"I want some candy!!" cried Haru.

"As I've previously explained, this candy is for Akito." Said Kureno, scoffing at poor little candy-craving baby Haru.

"It's okay, Haru, why don't you play with us now?" asked Tohru as she walked over to Haru since she was finished helping Kyo.

"But I want some candy…" Haru whined.

"I'm sure Akito would be happy to share his candy with you!" said Tohru naively.

"No." said the chicken as he stuffed a Milk Dud up Akito's nose by accident.  "No he wouldn't."

"Aww…" said Tohru.  "That's not very nice."

"I know but he needs this candy."

"Oh, in THAT case!!" said Tohru happily as she turned to Haru.  "Haru, he NEEDS that candy."

"I need it too…" said Haru.  "In fact, I probably need it more."

"We can get you some candy some other way!"

"How?" asked Haru.

"Well…last time Kyo took us too a convenient store!" Tohru said.  "Maybe he'll do it again and you can buy something there!  All you have to do is ask Kyo!"

"Kyo probably forgot the way." said Haru because now he's in a bad mood and when a little kid gets in a bad mood, he's usually extremely pessimistic.

"Let's go ask him!" said Tohru as she grabbed Haru's hand and began frolicking off in the general direction of where everyone else was switching off playing Mouse Trap.

"Kyo lost!" said Hiro.  "MY turn!"

"No it isn't!" Kyo yelled.  "I did NOT lose!!"

"Yes!!" yelled Hiro.

"Hiro, please don't argue with anybody anymore!" said Kisa but no one could really hear her because her voice is so squeaky and not loud especially compared to Hiro and Kyo.

"Can we play too?" asked Tohru.

Hiro turned to Tohru and glared right at Hiro with this horrible sinister two-year-old glare of doom.

"Um…" said Tohru nervously.  "Never mind…"

"Of course you can play." Said Kisa with a weak little smile.  "You can sit next to me."

Hiro then noticed that the spot that Kisa was pointing to was in between him and her!  So, like before, he scooted as close to Kisa as he could but at that exact time, Tohru had decided to sit down so Hiro really only scooted directly into Tohru and turned into a SHEEP!!

Hiro looked down at himself, then angrily up at Tohru and then looked back at the Mouse Trap game and continued with his life as if that didn't happen.  After all, it was now HIS turn because Kyo couldn't very well argue in front of Tohru so he had once again stormed off in uncontrollable rage!!  POOR KYO!!!  But that's okay for Hiro because now he gets a turn.

"I want a turn now too." Said Haru.  He had forgotten about the candy because now he's distracted!!

"You can go instead of me." Said Kisa with horseshoe eyes.

"Okay." Said Haru.

"And you can go instead of ME!" laughed Tohru.

"No, I couldn't." said Kisa.

"Sure you can!!" said Tohru happily.

In the end, it was Kisa, Hiro, Haru and Tohru.  Kagura had decided that she was much older and much more mature so she had to go off and find Kyo.  But it's not like that would be a very long search since he was most likely on the roof anyway.  So she fetched the ladder, climbed up on the room and then pushed the ladder down so matter how mean Kyo gets, she wouldn't leave or vice versa!

"I can't pick it up!" whined Hiro as he tried to pick up the dice with his little hooves since he was still a sheep. 

"I'll do it for you!" Tohru offered as she leapt forward to be ever helpful.  Hiro then batted the dice out of her reach.

"No!" he yelled at her.

"Um…okay." Said Tohru.

MEANWHILE!!

"I'm going to die!!" whined Shigure extra loudly as he writhed in pain in his bed.

"Do you ever shut-up?" asked Hatori more to himself than to Shigure.  

"AHHH!!  I'm gonna be sick!!!!" Momiji yelled as he picked up the plastic bowl next to his bed and barfed into it.  "BLAAAHHH!!"  (I bet that was in his dub voice.)

"My stomach still hurts but I'm hungry!" cried Yuki.

Hatori wasn't really feeling THAT sick anymore but he still wasn't feeling WELL.  He climbed out of bed and walked downstairs slowly and discombobulated-like.

"GOOD MORNING HATORI!!" Ayame yelled.

"Nanoo!" said the chicken as Hatori emerged.

"What are you doing here." Said Hatori as he looked the opposite of happy.

"I brought the rest of the Jyuunishi people!" said the chicken.  Hatori took that opportunity to look behind him and noticed the new people who weren't there when he went to bed.  "Aw, come on!  You act as though you're not happy to see me!"

"I'm not." Said Hatori.  "Who said that you could come down here anyway?" Hatori asked.

"I'm not at liberty to tell." Said Kureno as if it were a big secret that no one else could know.

"Hatori, you silly goose!" said Ayame, springing up and giving Hatori a few shoves in the direction of the ladder.  "Get your little behind back in bed and rest!"  Ayame then turned to Kureno.  "He's just cranky because he's sick, that's all.  He'd usually be VERY happy to see you!"

"I know." Said the chicken.  "I could tell by his bedraggled looks that he obviously wasn't feeling very well."

Hatori looked at Kureno and then walked to the bathroom so that he could check on himself and fix himself up so that he could be more presentable but the door to the bathroom was locked.

Suddenly, Yuki came down the stairs quickly.

"BABY BROTHER!!" Ayame cheered excitedly.  Yuki ran right by him and to the locked bathroom door and struggled to open it only to also discover it locked.  "Uh-oh…"

"Get a bowl or something." Said Hatori as he looked slightly urgent.  "Yuki, go to the sink."

Suddenly, Yuki threw up all over Hatori.

"Why me?" asked Hatori as he went to take off his disgusting clothes.  Then he remembered that he couldn't shower either because the shower was stolen.  So he decided that maybe he go and just wash all the…vomit off of him in the lake.  He didn't have much a choice.  POOR HATORI!!

So he went outside but he instantly heard voices from the roof.

"WHAT'D YOU DO TO THE LADDER?!?!" yelled Kyo.

"It fell down!" said Kagura cheerfully.

"LADDERS DON'T JUST FALL!!"

"THIS one does!!"

"What are you two doing up there?" Hatori asked, looking up at Kagura and Kyo while shielding his eyes from the sun.

"Hatori, this stupid girl knocked the ladder on the ground!" Kyo yelled.

Hatori looked on the ground to see a ladder.  Wow.

"Well, get off the roof." Said Hatori but he wasn't going to do anything about it.  He WOULD have…if he wasn't ill and covered in Yuki barf.

"I WANT to!" said Kyo.

"Me too!" said Kagura, latching onto Kyo's arm.

"I'll be right back." Said Hatori as he walked around the house and went to the lake.

MEANWHILE!!!

"Can I have a turn now?" asked Rin.

"It's my turn." Said everyone almost at the same time except for Tohru.

"You can take MY spot!" said Tohru way too happily.

"I don't want YOUR mouse." Said Rin, crossing her arms.

"That's okay!" said Tohru.  "Because like my mom always says…um… well, I'm sure she'd have SOME piece of advice for this situation like…oh…I don't know!  Maybe…share your mice with EVERYONE!!"

"You are very wise, Tohru." Said Yuki who was looming over Tohru.

"Oh!" said Tohru.  "Are you feeling better, Yuki?"

"Yeah." Said Yuki, sitting down in between Tohru and Haru.

"I don't want you here." Said Haru.  "Cause you're sick and I don't want to get sick."

"You're sick Yuki?" Kisa whispered but she was disregarded since no one really heard her except for Hiro who only leaned on top of her.  He had, by the way, turned back into a Hiro now.

"Don't sit here." Said Haru.

"Yeah, don't sit here!" said Rin.

"Cause you're sick." Haru added.

"Yeah, you're sick!" Rin said.

"You're sick." Said Hiro.

"You're sick?" Kisa said since no one heard her the first time.

"Why do I have an echo?" Haru said, looking annoyed.

"YEAH!!" said Rin.

At that point, Momiji came out of nowhere clutching his Wheelchair Olympic Barbie and wedged himself in between Rin and Haru.

"You're sick too!" Haru whined.

"I'm feeling a little better." Said Momiji as if Haru had asked.

"HEY!!" yelled Rin, pushing Momiji over and then scooting over right next to Haru.

"WHY'D YOU DO THAT?!?!" Momiji screamed loudly.

"You took my spot." Said Rin.

"You weren't there though!!" cried Momiji.  Just then, the Chicken came over.  He was cradling Akito who is, contrary to popular belief, not as small as any of the other children besides maybe Ritsu.  He's actually quite large considering he's nine and not…I don't know…six or whatever.

"What is going on here?!" demanded the Chicken.

"We're playing Mouse Trap." Said Kisa.

"WHAT?!" the Chicken said.

"Mouse Trap!" Hiro yelled.

"Oh!" said Kureno.  "Akito LOVES Mouse Trap.  He was actually just telling me how much he liked it.  So how about Akito plays Mouse Trap with you guys while Ayame and I go off and do teenager stuff?"  He plopped Akito down on the floor and then looked around.  "All right, you sick people should go back upstairs so that the healthy people don't get contaminated."

"No…" said Akito in his creepy little kid voice.

"Oh…" said the Chicken as he went into some kind of trance.  "Yuki can stay down here but Momiji, you really should go upstairs."

"FINE!!!" screamed Momiji.  "I KNOW WHEN I'M NOT WANTED!!!"  And with that, he grabbed Wheelchair Olympic Barbie and ran upstairs as fast as he could in tears.

Then Kureno frolicked off to go back over to where Ayame is.

Everyone looked at Akito who seemed as though he could hardly even support the weight of his own head.

"You can take MY mouse, Akito!" said Tohru randomly just because the silence was too eerie for her.

"Yuki…" said Akito, ignoring Tohru.  "Are you playing Mouse Trap?"

"No, I'm just watching." Yuki replied.

"I really like the game Mouse Trap." Said Akito.  "Do you know why?"

"Um…"

"Because the Rat is very special to me.  You are the rat, Yuki, and you are very special to me.  I would like to reach out and touch your face but I fear I am far too weak for that."

"Let me help!" said Hiro, grabbing Akito's hand, lifting it up and shoving it in Yuki's face.

"HEY!!!" Yuki yelled as he started crying like dub Momiji.  You know, I think Yuki and Momiji are the only ones who ever cry like dub Momiji.  I have to get some variety in the crying like dub Momiji department.

Akito turned his head and glared at Hiro who was already distracted because he was nuzzling Kisa.

"HOW DARE YOU!!!!" screamed Akito, standing up and smacking Kisa so hard that she went flying across the room and crashed into the wall.

Hiro gasped, looked at Akito, then at Kisa and then at Akito again.  Then he burst into tears.  He wasn't crying like dub Momiji, though, even though a second ago I was going to have more people crying like dub Momiji instead of just Yuki and Momiji but I think I like how it's only Yuki and Momiji so I'm going to keep it that way unless I get the terrible urge to make someone ELSE cry like dub Momiji.

"That wasn't very nice!" said Tohru as Akito went back into lump mode.  Then she got up and ran over to Kisa and started comforting her.  She went back and forth between Kisa and Hiro since they were both crying and they were LITTLE kids and she was OLD and MATURE and had to be the helpful one!!

Everyone else, meanwhile, was just watching.  Including Ayame and the Chicken.

At that exact moment, Hatori came back in the door with Kyo on one side and Kagura on the other side of him.

"I hope I didn't miss anything." He said as he looked at the screaming Hiro.  Kisa had already gotten over it but Hiro was still crying.

"Hm?" said Ayame, turning around.  "OH MY GOD HATORI!!!  ONCE AGAIN I MUST REMIND YOU NOT TO GO SWIMMING WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON!!!  YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO WEAR A BATHING SUIT!!!"

"Ayame, be silent." Said Hatori.  He probably would have said something along those lines even if he WASN'T sick but he's in an especially bad mood because he IS sick.

Kagura and Kyo ran over to where the huge mass of kids were playing.

"Don't you think it's time we fed Akito?" asked Kureno, opening the refrigerator.  "And everyone else?"

"Whatever." Said Ayame with a sigh as if he was just SO tired of feeding the children.

"How about these?" said the Chicken, pulling out the bowl of the berries that remained.  Remember the berries?  The ones Shigure picked?  GOOD!!  "My, my!  These look delicious!!"  With that, the Chicken dropped a handful on the ground and then put his hands by his side as if they were wings and started pecking at the berries, eating them one by one and bending ALL the way over without bending his legs.

Actually…that image is a bit troubling.

He just took a handful of berries and…ate them.  Normally.

"Anybody else want some?" the chicken asked, going over to where the group of children still were.  

Rin, Haru, Tohru and Yuki were all playing nicely.  Akito had his head leaned on Yuki's shoulder and Yuki was trying to inch away from him.  Hiro was still sniffling as if he was the one thrown against the wall and Kisa was comforting him.  Kagura and Kyo were still arguing about the whole ladder and roof incident.

"BERRIES ANYONE!?!?!?!" yelled the chicken.

"YAY!!" cheered Tohru since she wanted to be polite even though she didn't really know this strange fowl.  "I'd LOVE some!"

"Me too!" said Kagura since she IS a swine after all.

"Yeah, I want some too!" said Rin since she IS a steed even though that doesn't have anything to do with anything.

"I would like some too, please." Kisa said as loudly as she could which wasn't all that loud and she's a large carnivorous feline mammal.

"Well then dig in!!" said Kureno as he dropped the bowl on the ground and all the females had some berries while Kureno chuckled warmly and watched them all and got horseshoe eyes.  When they were done, he took the empty bowl and left.

TEN MINUTES LATER!!!

"WOW!!" said Ayame, slapping his cheeks.  "Who ever would have thought that these berries were actually poisonous and you would become sick if you ate them?!  I SURE DIDN'T!!"

Yes, at this point, Kagura, Tohru, Rin, Kisa, Kureno, Hatori, Shigure, Momiji and Yuki were all sick.  Well, Momiji and Yuki were feeling better so they were downstairs with all of the healthy people.

"I want to go and visit Tohru!" said Yuki like the perverted child he is.

Everyone else decided that they wanted to visit Tohru too.  Except for Hiro who wanted to visit Kisa and was beating himself up about how she was sick and blaming himself.  So everyone went upstairs and Yuki ran over to Tohru who was being all sickly.

"Are you okay?" asked Yuki as he started stroking Tohru's hair and then lifted up a piece of it and sniffed it.  Then he started coughing and choking and had to pull some of her hair out of his nose.

"I haven't washed my hair in a couple of days." Said Tohru.  "So you really shouldn't sniff it like that."

"You shouldn't sniff it at all you perverted rat!" yelled Kyo.

"No one asked YOU, stupid cat!!" yelled Yuki.

"I wasn't the one sniffing her hair!" Kyo said, crossing her arms.

"She likes it." Said Yuki.

"Um…not really." Said Tohru.

"Oh." Said Yuki.  Then he just started stroking her forehead.  Tohru didn't want to tell Yuki that he was a creepy child for touching and sniffing her when he really didn't have any right to since that would have been impolite so she only tried to endure it.

But then Akito literally came out of nowhere and fell on top of Yuki.

"Yuki…you are very special…" Akito said as he started stroking Yuki lovingly.

"Hey!" Yuki said, struggling to get free but Akito was much larger than he was.

Then the chicken crawled over.  He was very sick but he still wanted to fondle Akito since there was a fondling chain going on.

MEANWHILE!!!

Haru was sitting by himself downstairs in front of the Mouse Trap board.

Suddenly he looked up.  "Where is everyone?" he wondered.


	15. Underaged Driving and The End!

He sat there for a minute or two in silence, probably expecting everyone to jump out of their hiding places and surprise him.

"Where is everyone?" he repeated.

Then he shrugged.  "Well, I'm taking my turn."

MEANWHILE!!!

"Say Hatori, didn't you say that we were leaving soon?" said Ayame randomly.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Yuki and Momiji cried like dub Momiji.

"Why are you crying?" asked Ayame.

"Because we want to go home." They said, still in Momiji's dub voice.

"Very well, we SHALL!!" Ayame decided.

"But I'm ILL!!" yelled Shigure.

"So?!" demanded Ayame.  "I'LL drive.  You can lie in the back."

"But everyone will be sitting in the back." Hatori pointed out.  "Remember the car we have?"

Ayame shuddered in remembrance of the horrible bug.  "Kureno, what kind of car did you bring?" he asked innocently.

"A van…" said Kureno, looking up from his Akito fondling.

"Oh." Said Ayame.  Then he and Hatori exchanged glances.  "Well…I'm just going to go downstairs for no reason…"

"I think we ALL will…" Hatori added.

"But not Akito!" yelled the chicken, grabbing Akito's head as tightly as he could.

"Fine, he can stay here." Said Ayame.  "We won't miss him."

"Why, are you going somewhere?" asked the Chicken.

"No, of course not!" said Ayame as he hoisted up Kyo, Yuki, Kagura and Momiji over his shoulder and started going downstairs.

"Shigure, come downstairs for a minute." Said Hatori.

"I can't." moaned Shigure.

"Stop overreacting." Said Hatori.  "I'm still in pain too but I can still walk."

"Fine…" sniffled Shigure as he got out of bed and groaned with every step as if it was REALLY that painful.  About half way down the ladder, Hatori turned around to see that Tohru was still lying there.

"Tohru I uh…need your help with something." He said.

"Okay!" said Tohru as she hopped out of bed and ran over to Hatori.  Small children are very resilient and heal quickly.

Then they grabbed Haru on the way to the front door and tip toed away.

But Ayame had to slam the door behind him just so that the chicken could look out the window and see them screeching away instead of later coming to the realization that they were no longer there.  And that's exactly what happened.

Ayame was chuckling warmly to himself as he drove at about a trillion miles an hour.

"Ayame, you're over the speed limit just a little bit." Said Hatori.

"How do you know?" Ayame asked.  "The speedometer is broken."

"Slow down right now." Hatori commanded.

"Oh…oh very well…" sighed Ayame as he slowed down to a reasonable speed.

It was a reasonably quiet ride until Yuki put on his Sugar Beets and Kidz Bop tape in the tape player.  Then they threw Tohru at Yuki so he turned into a rat and then tossed his tapes out the window.  Then Yuki cried like dub Momiji and Momiji joined in just because he IS Momiji.

Everyone who was in the least bit sickly (that's everyone except for Kyo, Haru and Ayame) decided that they would take a nap until they got home.  And that's what they did.

"Do you know the way home?" Haru asked.

"Yes." Ayame replied.

"I wasn't talking to YOU." Said Haru.  "I was talking to Kyo."

"WHY?" asked Ayame AND Kyo.

"Because." Haru answered.

"Because WHY?" asked Ayame.  "I'm the one who's driving."

"Yeah." Said Haru.  "And my mom says that I'm not supposed to distract people who are driving by asking questions."

"Well that's only because you ask an excessively large amount of questions all the time, Haru." Ayame answered.  "And she was probably sick of hearing you."

"I'M sick of hearing you." Said Kyo.

"I'm not." Said Haru.

"That's because you can't hear YOURSELF." Said Kyo as if that was true.

"Yes you can." Said Ayame.

"Yeah but you can't get annoyed by yourself." Kyo corrected himself.

"That's not true." Ayame replied.  "You can easily annoy yourself."

"How?" asked Haru.

"Well…if I were you then I would be SO annoyed with myself." Ayame answered.

"Why?" asked Haru.

"Because then I would be you." Ayame said as if that were obvious.  "And I wouldn't be ME."

"…Um…" Haru said.

"Why would you want to be YOU?" asked Kyo.

"Is this a trick question?" Ayame said pompously.

"Ayame, what's it like not being a mammal all the time?" Haru asked.

Everyone stopped.

"WHAT?" Ayame said.

"I was going to ask Hatori but he's sleeping…and I'm not supposed to ask people questions while they're sleeping." Haru said.

"I thought you weren't supposed to ask questions while people are driving too." Kyo pointed out.

"My mom says I should just not ask questions." Haru said.  "She says I'm annoying."

"Well there you have it." Ayame said.  "Even your mom agrees that it would be annoying to be you."

"No, she's says I'm annoying, not that it would be annoying to be me." Haru said.

"It's the same." Ayame said.  "I'm sure she MEANT to say that it would be annoying to be you."

"But still…what's it like not being a mammal all the time?" Haru said, changing the subject.  "I'm ALWAYS a mammal."

"Me too." Said Kyo.

"SILENCE!!!" yelled Ayame so loudly that it was a surprise that no one woke up.  "I'm trying to drive and concentrate!"

"Can I drive?" asked Haru.

"Me too!" Kyo said excitedly.

"OH FINE!" said Ayame as if they had been begging him for hours.  He pulled the car over to the side of the road and then he sat in the passenger seat which was empty.  Kyo and Haru got into the driver's seat.  Actually, Kyo stood up in the seat and Haru got down where the pedals were.

They sat there for a minute.

"Haru, you have to push the pedals." Ayame explained.

"Oh." Said Haru as he pushed down on both of the pedals.

"…No, you have to choose one or the other." Ayame said with a sigh.

"Oh." Said Haru as he pushed the brake.

"Haru, you're such an idiot." Said Ayame.  "You have to press the gas pedal.  You know, the one you're NOT pushing?"

Haru looked at the one he was not pushing.  "Oh." He said, pushing down on the gas pedal as hard as he could.  With that, the car sped off and went at about a trillion miles an hour just like it was before.

Of course, the sudden jolt awakened all the sleeping folk.  And the ones that didn't wake up from the sudden jolt were awakened by Kyo screaming, "I'M DRIVING!!!!"

"What are you doing?" Hatori said, right at that exact line BEFORE he needed an exclamation point.

"DRIVING!!!" Kyo screamed.  Hatori looked at Ayame who was reading his Vogue magazine.

Luckily, at that time, Haru was curious to see what was going on up above so he let go of the pedals and climbed up on the seat.

"What are you doing?!" demanded Kyo.  "Get back down there!"

"I wanna see." Said Haru.

"That's enough of this." Said Hatori, grabbing Kyo and Haru and pulling them into the backseat.  He then climbed into the front to the driver's seat.

"Hatori, I think you should let THEM drive." Said Ayame.  "You crashed; they didn't."

"Ayame, be quiet." Hatori replied.

"I'll drive next!" said Yuki.

"No you won't." Hatori answered.

"That's not fair!" whined all the kids who didn't get to drive.

Luckily since there were two periods of time in which they went at a trillion miles an hour, they were already in front of Tohru's house.  Her mother, who was alive, was standing outside on the front lawn obsessively waiting for her to come home.

"Mom!" shrieked Tohru as she jumped out of the car and into her mother's arms.

"Tohru, just be yourself and everyone will love you and love everyone and you will love yourself." Said Tohru's Mom as she carried Tohru back into the house.

All the people in the car paused and waited for something to happen but when nothing did, they shrugged and continued driving until they finally got to the Souma neighborhood.  Since the neighborhood was so large.  They had to drop off all the kids individually.

First, they decided to drop Momiji off because he was crying like his dub self.

Ayame walked up to the front steps with Momiji since Hatori and Shigure were STILL sick and wanted to stay in the car.  He knocked on the door and eventually, the door opened just a little teeny crack and someone peaked at them through the little teeny crack.

"Um…I'm here to drop Momiji off." Ayame said.

"Get away…" said the female inside.  "Get away you horrible Jyuunishi freaks of nature!!"

"Hi mom!" said Momiji.

"BE GONE!!!" Momiji's Mom screamed.  "WHY DID YOU COME HOME?!  I WAS FINALLY HAPPY WITHOUT YOU!!!"  Then she slammed the door shut.  After a few seconds of standing there in silence, the door opened again only Momiji's DAD was standing there.

"Momiji!" he said happily, bending down and hugging Momiji.

"Hi dad!" said Momiji.

Then Momiji's Dad stood up and faced Ayame.  "You'll have to excuse my wife." He said.  "She's a bit prejudiced against the Jyuunishi."

"Don't worry, I get it a lot from my OWN mother!" Said Ayame.  "You know, we have ways of helping her kind.  My friend Hatori in the car…"

"I know." Said Momiji's Dad.  "We have an appointment next week."

"Okay then." Said Ayame as he frolicked off back to the car.

Up next was Kagura just because she's kind of faded into the background so she might as well just leave.

Ayame walked Kagura up to HER front steps.

"Mom!" said Kagura.

"Kagura!" said her mom.

Kagura's house was shaped like a spatula.  Why?  It doesn't matter.

Um…yay…

SO ANYWAY!!  Ayame went back to the car.

Next they were going to drop Haru off.

Ayame walked Haru up to HIS front steps.

He rang the doorbell.

Haru's Auntie came to the door and laughed manically.  "HAHAHAHA!!" she laughed as she slapped her knee.  "It's only natural that the cow would ring his OWN doorbell!" she said.  "I mean, he was stupid enough to let the rat ride him to the party so that's all we can really expect from him!!"

Then a swarm of Haru Aunties laughed at him.

"Hey…" said Haru.

"See you later Haru!" said Ayame as he ran off.  As they were driving away, they looked behind them to see a giant mushroom cloud where Haru's house used to be.  Then they all chuckled at the thought of Black Haru and how they were glad that THEY didn't have to deal with him anymore.

Finally, it was time to drop off Kyo.

They drove to Shishou-Sama's house and…can you guess what Ayame did?  He walked Kyo up to the steps and knocked on the door.  Shishou-Sama opened the door and there was a light shining behind him and he was smiling and had horseshoe eyes and was sparkling and there was music in the background and all that other kind of Shishou stuff.

"Welcome back…Kyo!" said Shishou-Sama.

"Shishou!" said Kyo, smiling WAY too happily.  Then he leapt into Shishou-Sama's arms and latched onto him like a leech just to ruin the moment so it wouldn't be RIGHT out of an episode!!

But then Shishou-Sama punched him to the ground and stood up grinning as if punching a small child should make him grin.  "You still have a long way to go before you can latch onto me like that!" he said.

"Someday!" said Kyo.  "Someday…I will…become somebody…who will… BE ABLE TO LATCH ONTO YOU!!"

"Let's hope that that day comes when you are still a small child or else that would just be weird." Said Shishou-Sama.

"Well, by that time, I can assume I will have a new goal." Kyo said.

"Can I leave?" asked Ayame who was feeling uncomfortable.

"No.  Come in for tea." said Shishou-Sama forcefully.

"I can't." said Ayame.

"Ayame, don't make me get violent." Threatened Shishou-Sama.

"Well, if you insist!" Ayame said as he was about to walk in but Hatori beeped the horn from the car.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were the designated driver?" Shishou-Sama asked.  "Go, drive the rest of your friends home."

"I'm actually not driving." Ayame replied.  "I'm just walking everybody to their front steps."

"Well…go do that then." Said Shishou-Sama as he slammed the door on Ayame's face.

Ayame shrugged and went back to the car.

"What took so long?" asked Shigure.

"Kazuma wanted me to come in for tea." Ayame answered.

"Oh." Said Shigure.  "Well, I want to go home next."

"Fine." Said Hatori as he drove to Shigure's house in the woods that was OUT of the Souma neighborhood.  Yes…he lives there.  Only with his parents.  And…his sister.  And his four brothers…and his pet dog, Pochie-San.  And his grandmother who has Parkinson's disease.  And his cousin who has mad cow disease.  AKA Haru who is visiting since his house blew up.

"Would you look at that?" said Shigure.  "Haru's at my house!"

"Lucky you." Said Ayame as Shigure got out of the car.

"Haru, what are you doing here?" asked Shigure.

"My house blew up." Haru replied.

"Well how did THAT happen?!" Shigure said as if he didn't know.

"I'm not telling." Haru said.

"Well, whatever you did, don't do it to my house with so many people living in it!" Shigure warned.  Then he waved goodbye to Ayame, Hatori and Yuki but then remembered that he was still sick so he quickly ran inside to rest up.

"Hatori, YOU'RE next!" said Ayame.

"Why can't you two be next?" asked Hatori.

"Because I want to keep the car." Ayame said truthfully.

"Well, I don't trust you." Said Hatori.  "I'm afraid that maybe you might let Yuki drive."

"I wouldn't do THAT!" said Ayame.  "Why would I let YUKI drive?!"

Before he could protest any further, he looked out the window to see that Hatori had already driven to Ayame and Yuki's house.

"Well fine…" said Ayame.  "Since we're HERE and all…"

Then he got out of the car and Yuki got out too and just as Hatori was about to drive away, Ayame leapt out in front of the car.

"Aren't you going to walk us to our front steps?!" he demanded.

"I'm sure you'll be fine." Said Hatori.  "You walk everyone to the front steps anyway."

"But who will walk YOU to the front steps?" asked Ayame.

"Don't worry." Said Hatori.  "I'll be fine."

"All right Hatori but if I find out later that you were kidnapped and molested just because you walked to your house unattended then I'll just say 'I told you so!'"

"Okay…" said Hatori as he swerved around Ayame and then headed to his house.

Ayame and Yuki went to their house and went inside.

"WE'RE HOME!!!" they screamed together.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" screamed their mom from upstairs.

Back with Hatori, he was driving home.  Well…then he got home.

We don't know anything about Hatori's family, only extensively about his love life so we'll just say that he got home, went to his room and enjoyed a good smoke after not smoking for a period of time that will not be specified.

From downstairs, Hatori's mom called, "Hatori!!" she called.  "The phone's for you!  It's Ayame!  He just wants to make sure you got home okay!"

Hatori paused.  "Tell him I'm smoking." He said.

END!!


End file.
